Joshua 4
After the people of Israel had safely crossed the dry road made in the Jordan River; while the men holding the ark were still standing in their place, Joshua sent twelve men, one from each tribe, to each take a stone from that place, and carry them on their shoulders to the side where the people were, in Canaan.
This the men did, and set them down there.
Then Joshua set up twelve other stones, in the midst of the river, in the place where the men with the ark stood, and those were left there.
After all this was done as God had said, He told Joshua to tell the men with the ark, to come up out of the river, and they came out to the place where all the people were.
Then God allowed the water to flow again, and there was so much that it again overflowed the banks.
But the people of Israel and the ark were safe in Canaan.
Joshua set up the twelve stones which the men had brought from the river, at the camping place in Canaan.
People still use stones to mark places, often very beautiful ones. Perhaps those twelve stones from Jordan were very plain. Yet, when the small children, who did not see or remember, the crossing of Jordan, would ask, “What mean these stones?” their parents would tell them how the great company crossed the Jordan on dry ground while the ark was in the midst. So the children would learn of the greatness of God in bringing them to that good land.
Those stones remind us of still greater power: as the ark was in the river, and the people could pass safely across, so Christ was in the place of death that we might he saved; and as the ark was taken up to the other side, so He was raised out of death, which gives His people peace and joy.
The twelve stones in the river, which the waters covered over and only God could see, remind us how He counts His people to have been in that place of death with Christ.
ML 03/06/1938