Ron Dunn Podcast - Following Through

Episode Date: October 5, 2022

Ron Dunn gives a message on following through

Now would you open your Bibles to the Old Testament, the book of Joshua, chapter 4. The book of Joshua, chapter 4. And I'm going to read the first nine verses and then skip to verse 19 and read through the end of the verses 19 through 24. We're going to focus this morning on an unusual incident that occurs after the people have crossed the River Jordan into the promised land. And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over Jordan, that the Lord spake unto Joshua, saying, Take you twelve men out of the people, out of every tribe a man, and

command ye them, saying, Take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests' feet stood firm, twelve stones, and ye shall carry them over with you, and leave them in the lodging place where ye shall lodge this night. Then Joshua called the twelve men whom he had prepared of the children of Israel out of every tribe a man. And Joshua said unto them, Pass over before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of Jordan, and take you up, every man of you, a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, that this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers

in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off, and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel forever. And the children of Israel did so as Joshua commanded, and took up twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan, as the Lord spake unto Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, and carried them over with them unto the place where they were lodged, and laid them down

there. And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests which bear the ark of the covenant stood. And they are there unto this day. 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 did Joshua pitch or erect 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 you 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 you were passed Now the latter part of verse 7. that it is mighty, and that ye may fear the Lord your God forever. Now the latter part of verse 7. And these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel forever. If any of you have ever tried to learn a sport, you will remember that follow-through is at once one of the most important and one of the most difficult parts of learning any sport. It's that way in golf. It's that way in tennis. It's that way in bowling. It's that way in hitting a baseball.

It's that way in throwing a football. The follow-through and success in those various sports depend upon follow-through. And yet there is a tendency for us to not follow through. And the hardest thing, perhaps in my own case, to remember, to concentrate on is the follow-through. I get so excited once I hit a ball, I forget about following it through. It's true in sport, but it's also true in practically every endeavor and enterprise of life. You don't have to look very hard to see the roadsides littered with ideas and enterprises, business ventures that had a good beginning, but because there was no faithful follow-through,

they just passed out of existence. I think it's that true in marriage. There has to be a follow-through, a life to be lived. And it is extremely so in the Christian life that one of the most important aspects of the Christian life as well as one of the most difficult is this matter of following through. For instance, if you'll study particularly the letters of the Apostle Paul, you will find that very little is said about the crisis experience in the Christian life. But the emphasis is upon the follow-through, upon the walk.

For instance, in Colossians 2, 6, and 7, the Apostle Paul says, As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus as Lord, so walk ye in Him. And to study the New Testament is to discover that that little emphasis is placed upon what you and I would call the crisis experience. And yet that's what we spend a great deal of time on. When someone shares their testimony of salvation or of a great experience

they've had with the Lord, it usually centers around that initial experience, that crisis experience whereby they entered into an experience. And yet very little is dealt with in the matter of the walk or the follow-through or what has happened and continued to happen since that time. But the important aspect of the Christian life is not the beginning and is not that crisis experience, but it is the walk, it is that follow-through. And I think you find this very significantly here in this fourth chapter of Joshua. It's interesting for me to notice that out of 24 chapters, only four are taken with the matter of entering into the land,

and the remaining 20 chapters are taken up with following through after they have gotten into the land. The first thing that they must take care of is this matter of guaranteeing their preservation once they're in the land. If you'll look at that fourth chapter you'll see that in chapter in verse 13 it says that when they crossed over Jordan that about 40,000 crossed over prepared for war, dressed for battle. And if you study the geography and the topography of that land, you see that when they got across Jordan, they were in an exposed

area. They were in a very, as far as militarily speaking, in a very insecure area. They crossed over, prepared to fight, dressed for battle. They were in an area where there was no cover and no hiding. It was in an exposed area. And yet, God makes them to stop and has them to go through what we might consider to be a very strange procedure. And all the while, they're exposed to the enemy. They don't know what to expect. They do not know if the Canaanites are going to rush down upon them the very moment they cross over to the other side. And they're ready to fight, prepared for battle, but God will not allow them to go into battle. First, there must be an act of worship. First, there must be a memorial

set up. And the whole chapter deals primarily with the erecting of these twelve stones, taking twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan, taking twelve stones out of the midst of their tremendous experience, and placing them where they're going to camp that night. And then when they move on to Gilgal, they take them with them. And the King James says that Joshua pitched them in Gilgal. And I retranslated it as I read because I didn't want you to think that when Joshua got to Gilgal, he just pitched the stones away. Literally it means to erect, and the word Gilgal means a circle, and more probably Joshua, when they got to Gilgal, he erected these twelve stones in a circle. Some scholars seem to believe that when John was baptizing Jesus and baptizing

his followers in Jordan, that when the Pharisees referred to these stones, that He was referring to those particular stones that had been erected by Joshua and by the people as they came out of Jordan because the place nearby means the place of passage. And so those stones became a memorial, a memorial to what God had done in the lives of those people. And those stones were meant to constantly through the days and years to come to bring the people back to that spot of beginning

to enable them to follow through in what God had started in their lives. And so what I want to do this morning is to take this question that is to be asked of these stones. What do these stones mean? What do these stones mean? You know, it's interesting how God appeals to the natural curiosity of people. And He says, you're going to erect these stones, and when your children come along, they're going to ask, what's the meaning of these stones? They haven't just been placed here haphazardly because they're erected in a neat little circle.

They are a monument to something. What do these stones mean? They have come out of the experience of God's deliverance. And they are an integral part of what God has done in the life of the people. Now, what do these stones mean? And so I want to ask that question and then answer it. And there are several answers that come to us out of this passage. The first answer is this.

Those stones, and by the way, there ought to be some stones erected in your own Christian life out of the experience that God has given you. Those stones, first of all, mean that there ought to be some lasting and visible evidence of what God has done in your life. Out of any experience that you have had with the Lord Jesus, whether or not it's salvation or whether or not it's moving out of the wilderness of carnality and defeat into a land of fullness and abundance, as is the primary meaning of this particular passage, those stones, what God is saying to us is that there ought to be some lasting and visible evidence of your experience with the Lord. There ought to be something remaining of that experience

that arouses the curiosity of others that observe it and say, hey, what means these stones in your life? What has happened in your life? What do these evidences, these lasting souvenirs of your experience with the Lord, what do they mean? And I'm afraid that one of the tragedies of much of our Christian experience is that there is very little lasting and visible evidences of what God has done in our life.

Now, I'm not against wearing fish hooks and fishes and chains around the neck, and I'm not against putting bumper stickers on your car saying that you're a Christian, but I want to say to you this morning, if that is what it takes to have people to notice that you and I have had an experience with the Lord Jesus, there's something terribly lacking in our experience. There ought to be something about our experience, lasting and visible to those that observe it, that caused them to ask,

what has happened in your life? What has happened in your life? I was reading not long ago out of 1 Corinthians, and I came across a very strange phrase. Paul, writing to these Corinthians, warned them against receiving the grace of God in vain. Receiving the grace of God in vain. And immediately reading that, I asked myself this question, how could you ever receive the grace of God in vain?

How could it ever be that if a man receives the grace of God, how could you ever say that it was empty and meaningless and it was useless to receive the grace of God? Well, Paul goes on, and it's in that sixth chapter, he goes on to point out that unless there is follow-through in their lives, unless there is some obvious, visible, tangible holiness in their daily walk, he says you have received the grace of God in vain. We were reading last Sunday morning out of Galatians chapter 3 where he says to these Galatians who had a good beginning in the Spirit, but they were looking now to mechanical means of religion to make them mature and holy.

He says, if you continue in this way, everything you have experienced will be in vain. And then there was another verse that caught my attention as I followed through this same train of thought, and it's in Philippians chapter 1 and chapter 2, where Paul writes to these people that, to whom he has preached, and they have been his converts, and yet he says, there is the possibility that everything I have done in your midst, my preaching to you and your responding to that preaching, he says, all of my labor may be in vain. What Paul is referring to is that far-off day when he stands in the presence of his Lord

and gives an account of his stewardship and brings to the Lord Jesus Christ all the remnants of his ministry. And he says, there is the possibility that with you Philippians, all of my labor might be in vain. Now, I want you to remember that those folks had truly been saved. Could you say, can you really say that even though these people have been saved, yet Paul's ministry among them was useless? That's exactly what he says. He says, if the only thing that happens to you is you enter the Christian life,

all of my ministry among you is useless and in vain unless you go on to work out that salvation with fear and trembling until you come to the fullness of the stature of a measure of Christ. And what God is saying to us by these stones is that unless there is some lasting and visible evidences of your experience with the Lord Jesus Christ, your experience has been in vain as far as God is concerned. Because, you see, God's primary reason for giving you and me an experience with Him is not that you and I might have an experience.

Will you believe it if I say to you that the primary reason that Jesus Christ has saved you is not to keep you from hell and take you to heaven? No. No, if you know your Bible and if you know God's activity, you'll know that the primary reason for which God sent His Son into the world to become the atonement of our sins, that was that through that God himself might be glorified the end and purpose of salvation does not stop with our salvation but it goes beyond our salvation to bring God glory for what he's done and if the life that I live after I'm saved does not bring God any glory then as far as God is concerned

what Jesus has done in my life is absolutely useless. And so you look over to the last verse of this fourth chapter. He says that all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty, and that ye might fear the Lord your God forever. He said, that's the reason I brought you through Jordan. That's the reason I dried up the Red Sea. That's the reason I have defeated all of your enemies. That's the reason I've preserved you these 40 years in the wilderness. That's the reason I've committed myself to you

to bring you into a land of promise. It's not simply for your sakes, but that all the people of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord God is mighty. And if they cannot see that in your life, if there is not that lasting and visible evidences of your experience with me, he says, it is all vain and useless. And so the first message of the stones is this.

There ought to be a lasting and visible evidence this morning of your experience with the Lord Jesus. Such an experience that arouses the curiosity of others. You know, you could almost stay there a long while and get very uncomfortable and personal and nosy in some questions that you ask. But the remnant of that experience I had with Jesus, has it left such a change, an obvious change in my life, that it arouses the curiosity of others? All right, second thing those stones mean is this,

that that experience that I have with the Lord ought to become the center of all my life and of all my activity. Now, I want you to listen closely, or you'll miss something extremely significant in this chapter. They took those 12 stones out of the heart of their experience with the Lord and they piled them where they encamped that night they slept by them what God had done was to be a part of their every life

even their personal life of sleeping but when they moved from that initial stopping place, Joshua took those 12 stones with him, and when they came to Gilgal, he erected there those stones at Gilgal. Now, we don't have time to look into it, but if you will take the time to read Joshua and all the way through,

you'll find that Gilgal became the base of operations. And they conquered all the land, and their headquarters was Gilgal. Gilgal became the center of their activity. Everything they did flowed from Gilgal. And after a battle, Joshua did flowed from Gilgal. And after a battle, Joshua would come back to Gilgal. If he were defeated, he would come back to Gilgal. If he were victorious, he'd come back to Gilgal. Gilgal, the place where those stones were, the place that we remembered what God has done for us, those became the base of operations. It became the center of their life. And everything they did at the very heart of all their activity was what God had done for them. And what God is

saying, I think, is simply this, that what I do in your life, that experience you have with me, when I move into your life to deliver you, that ought to be the control center, the base of all of your operations, and everything you do in your life ought to be regulated by that experience you had with me. Gilgal became a place of remembering. What do those stones mean? Those stones tell us that it's dangerous to forget, and we'd better have a place of remembering what God has done for us. You know, it's very easy for us to forget. There seems to be a natural proclivity of fallen human nature to forget God's goodness. And Gilgal became a place of remembering.

Remembering what? Remembering what God has done for us. Remembering God's hand of deliverance. You see, you need that place of remembering in times of defeat. I think it's interesting that Joshua would come back to Gilgal after he had been defeated. There he would remember what? He would remember that even though he had a temporary setback, even though he was temporarily defeated, yet he remembered that time

when God committed himself to his people and once remembering that, he knew God was never going to abandon his folks. You know, we need those times of remembering. There are those times when God doesn't seem to be answering your prayer. There are those times when God doesn't seem to be coming through and delivering you out of that tight situation. And we have a tendency to forget anything that God has ever done for us and simply to say, well, God no longer answers prayer and I don't believe in him any longer. And we have a tendency to get bitter and cynical.

And you need to go back. And when God isn't hearing and God isn't answering those prayers, folks, you need to go back and remembering all those prayers that God has answered. And if for some reason God isn't acting now, He knows why and He knows what He's doing. He has a purpose in it. And there will be those times of discouragement and doubt and depression when you need to go back and remember the blessings of God. I think that's why the Lord Jesus Christ instituted the Lord's Supper.

And Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, this do in remembrance of me. Well, how could I ever forget the cross? I don't know, but you can. I don't forget it as a historical event, but I forget that Jesus Christ has so loved me that He has shed His blood for me because there are times when I'm so encircled

by doubts and frustrations, it seems as though He no longer loves me. And I need to go back to the cross and remember that God does love me and He has committed Himself to me. It's a place of remembering. Moses warned the people of this. He said, you'd better watch out lest after you have grown fat in the land

you forget that it is the Lord thy God that giveth thee the power to get rich. He says to His prophet Hosea, to his people who now have turned away from God, he said, Listen, I knew you in the wilderness. I knew you when you were not a people. I knew you when nobody else cared anything about you. And I reached down and I saved you for myself. And you need to remember that. And there's those times when you and I need to come back

and remember what God has done for us. It's a place of remembering. We need to remember some of those vows we made to the Lord also. Isn't it interesting how easily we forget all those vows we made to God? A place of remembering, but it was also a place of readjustment. Now this is extremely important. It was a place of readjustment. Even a man like Joshua could sometimes lose his bearings

and become disoriented and seem to lose his grip on the situation. Has that ever happened to you? And there have to be those times when you and I go back to that time when God did a new work in our lives and compare what we were like then with what we have become like now and readjust ourselves to what we were, fresh from God's delivering power. Because as we move on, as we follow through,

and as we move on, we have a tendency to lose sight of that initial standard. And it's only as we go back and look at what we were when God first did His work in us that we're able to readjust our present life to what we ought to be. For instance, the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace and long-suffering, and meekness, and gentleness. Those are great things to readjust your life by. You say, man, I'm filled with the Holy Spirit. Are you? Why don't you go back and look at those stones

and see if there's love, and joy, and peace overflowing from your life this morning. You may discover you need some readjusting. If you were to go back, you may discover that when you first came out of that Jordan River, when God first delivered you, there was such a desire to get alone with God and His Word and to pray. And you've forgotten that. And you go back and you remember and you say, hey, there must be something wrong because

that same urgency and that same discipline is no longer present in my life and there needs to be some readjustment made. There needs to be some readjustment made. And so these stones are telling us that that experience you and I have had with the Lord Jesus Christ needs to become the base of our operations. And everything that you and I do in our Christian life must be regulated, must be regulated by that experience we've had with the Lord Jesus. And if there's anything this morning that is present in your life that contradicts that experience and what God did in that experience,

you need to go back and readjust your life and realign your life to what God has done. Then there's one last thing. These stones mean something else. They mean that you and I have an obligation to those that come after us to bear witness and testimony. It means that you and I have an obligation to stand ready to testify to those that come after us of God's redeeming grace and delivering power.

You really get to the heart of the reason for these stones because he mentions it twice, and any time God says something twice, you know he's trying to get our attention. Twice he says, These stones shall be a memorial for when your children, referring to our immediate physical children, but the broader application as this passage shows,

refers to those other Christians, those other Israelites who shall come afterwards. He says, when your children shall say to you, what do these stones mean? In other words, he's saying there ought to be the quality of life about you that causes those that come after the children to say, hey, what did God do for you? And you will be able to testify this is what God has done. You have an obligation to share this, to pass it on to others so that it becomes a unity. Now listen carefully. I want you to look at that 23rd verse. Let's look at verse 22. 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. Now, I want you to look at that phrase, from before you. He doesn't say from before us. He says from before you. But he's talking to succeeding generations. He's looking down into the future to succeeding generations. And they are to feel that they were there when it happened. In other words, he's saying that my life, my faithfulness to what God has done,

my preservation of the power of God in my life, ought to be such that there is no difference in the spiritual temperature of next 10 years members of MacArthur Boulevard than this 10 years. I'm wondering this morning if those of us who are here in MacArthur Boulevard today are living a life of such faithfulness and dedication to the Lord Jesus Christ and such submission to the control of His Spirit that in the next ten years those who are here then will be as one with us. Are we living such a quality of life to preserve, to preserve the level of spirituality to those that come after.

One of the saddest things to ever happen is to walk into a church and hear how it used to be 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago. And I can take you to churches all over the place today, and I can take you in and I say, listen, if you'd have been here 10 years ago, you'd have really seen God doing something. If you'd have been here 15 years ago, you would have seen God doing something. I think it would be better if God were to just wipe us all out today and close the doors and sell it for an auction barn than I have to ever say to a generation 10, 15 years from now and say, boy, I wish you'd been back here during the 70s. God was really doing something then. But something happened and we lost the power and the glory of the Lord departed from us

and now it's just an old, dead, drab, ritualistic religion. But, oh, you should have been here back in the 70s. You'd have seen God do something. If that ever comes to pass, then I think what God would have to say is, everything I've done for you has been in vain. Has been in vain. And what the Lord is saying by these stones

is that you and I have an obligation to those that will come after. And what God has done for us, it's just as though He did it for them that shall come after. Because of our faithfulness to stay true to Jesus and keep the lines of communication open between our Lord and ourselves. Are there any stones erected in your life? You know, there's one thing that you can't miss as you read through this. He said there's to be a stone for every tribe, 12 of them. The completeness of it, the completeness of it. If he were speaking in our language today,

he'd say there ought to be a stone erected in MacArthur Boulevard for every family that's a member. And every head of every family that's a part of MacArthur Boulevard ought to be able to bring a stone and say, This represents my experience with Jesus that has some lasting and visible evidences. That is such that it arouses the curiosity of my children and makes them want to ask, What has God done for you? And this stone regulates what God has done for me,

regulates everything I do in my life. We don't have tribes, we have families. And there'd be several hundred stones. But you know, as I look over the stones, I find some missing. There's some that are missing. And I wonder, Father and Mother, if the stone of your Christian

experience is missing from this monument. Let's pray together. The Ron Dunn podcast is available only for personal edification, not to be duplicated, uploaded to the web, or Let's pray together. slash bookstore and search Ron Dunn. For more Ron Dunn materials, including sermon outlines, devotions, and scanned pages from a study Bible, please visit rondunn.com.