Enquiring Minds Want to Know
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Joshua 4:19-25
“Enquiring Minds Want to Know”
September 9, 2018
Many of you will remember back in the 80’s a most successful advertising campaign by the National Enquirer magazine, which had as its tagline, “Enquiring Minds Want to Know.” What made that campaign so successful was the way it allowed that gossip rag of a publication to attain at least a modest level of respectability in popular American culture by granting people permission to read it because of how doing so would only be engaging in something that on the surface could never be considered entirely bad. After all, who among us doesn’t harbor some measure of curiosity about what’s going on around us in life? Who among us doesn’t want to be “in the know” about important happenings? Who among us doesn’t want to be perceived as possessing an “enquiring mind?”
Curiosity is very much a good thing, as long as our curiosity compels us to lean into things that will bless us and bring out our better angels. That’s the direction the Bible takes in describing the perpetuation of what we might call a “holy curiosity” back in the days of Joshua, a curiosity that would enable the nation of Israel to build a fulfilling future in the Promised Land and avoid finding themselves enslaved to a much more pernicious bondage than anything they had known way back in Egypt.
The early chapters of Joshua might be described as Israel’s halcyon years. They picture a unified and obedient Israel, anxiously anticipating their future in Canaan, the Land of Promise. By the third chapter, Israel, under Joshua’s direction, has finally made it to the banks of the Jordan River after a long and arduous journey through the wilderness. On the other side is Canaan, the land that God has promised them. But in order to get there they still have to make it across the muddy Jordan, which is at flood stage and consequently seems impassable to the people.
However, when God’s people bump up against the seemingly impossible, that’s when God does His greatest work. In this instance, Joshua commands the Levites to take up the Ark of the Covenant, the symbol of God’s presence among His people, and wade out into the water. When they do, something truly remarkable happens, something the people of God have not seen since the day that God parted the Nile River back in Egypt so that they might escape their bondage. Once again, the waters part, the people pass through, and while the priests are standing in the middle of the Jordan, the whole nation crosses over and sets foot on the dry ground of Canaan.
You would think that having experienced a miracle like that would have been enough for the moment to be marked forever in the minds of God’s people. But that’s not always how memories stay alive. Too often other events, particularly challenging ones, have a way of crowding out even the most glorious of memories so that if we aren’t intentional about preserving them, they will eventually slip away into the cobwebs of time.
So, Joshua, successor to Moses and leader of the nation of Israel, does something truly brilliant. He has twelve men, one from each of the twelve tribes of Israel, to take up a stone each from the Jordan and carry them on their shoulders to the dry ground of Canaan. Once the stones have been brought across, Joshua sets them up as a memorial so that in the days to come when their children ask the question out of holy curiosity, “What do these stones mean?” the people may explain to yet another generation how God had parted the waters of the raging river and once again made a way where a way did not seem possible.
Actually, the stones that Joshua had the people set up served a twofold purpose. On the one hand, for the people, the stones were to be a reminder that the God whom they worshiped and served was powerful enough to deliver them regardless of whatever challenges they might confront in Canaan, which if you read on in the book of Joshua and Judges would be many. But for the inhabitants of Canaan, who had their own gods and their own rituals and who would not be happy about these newcomers who had come into Canaan to take over their land, the stones would also boldly proclaim that it is the God of Israel who controls the forces of nature and He is also capable of controlling any enemy His people might face. Therefore, it would be futile to try to halt their advance. The land belongs to God’s people and it would not be to the Canaanite’s advantage to test the people of Israel and, more importantly, it would not be to their advantage to test Israel’s God.
I don’t think it’s much of a leap to move from this story to our own today. Many times we find ourselves facing an uncertain future, totally incapable of predicting the challenges and difficulties that we know in our bones will be ahead of us. Consequently, we become unduly anxious and afraid and find ourselves unable to take advantage of opportunities that would make us know more fulfillment and joy. But when those times come, instead of cowering in the face of an undetermined future, we might look back at times past when God’s hand was strong and His grace was sufficient, we will then be able to set our faces toward tomorrow in the confidence that with God’s help and God’s support, there is nothing that will come against us that in His power we will not be able to overcome.
Isn’t that what Jesus was encouraging his disciples to do when on the night prior to his crucifixion, he took the bread and the cup, and gave them to his disciples, saying, “This is my body which is broken for you. This is my blood which is shed for you. Eat and drink in remembrance of me.” In other words, Jesus wanted his disciples to draw upon the power of his atoning death so that they might know that, as Paul reminded the church at Philippi, we “can do all things through Christ who gives us strength” (Phil. 4:13).
We can do all things through Christ, not through ourselves, nor through any other human agency. Therefore, the question that we face this morning is the question, “Do we trust in the strength God has provided us through His gift of Jesus Christ, or do we seek to overcome the challenges that are before us in our own power?” If we locate our security in Jesus, there is nothing that can stand in our way. But if we choose instead to locate it in ourselves, we have no help; we have no hope.
This morning, we find ourselves standing at a most critical juncture in the history of Mountain Brook Baptist Church. What makes our position so critical is not because our church is in any trouble. We have no simmering disagreement. We’re not in any financial trouble. Our attendance may get spotty at times, especially over the course of the summer, but when you count the number of people who are in attendance in a given month, even in the summer months, we’re probably in as good a shape, attendance-wise, as we’ve ever been. No, what makes our position so critical is that, as with any church or organization or institution, or for that matter with any individual, no one knows what the future will hold. We have no idea what tomorrow will bring. The only thing we can count on is that the God who has brought us to this point is still present and is still powerful and is still able to do immeasurably more than we might ask or imagine as long as we place our trust in Him. In the same way that God provided for us in days past, God will continue to do so in the days to come.
So, in the weeks and months that are to come, we’ll be gearing up for our church’s 75th Anniversary by telling stories and celebrating accomplishments, not just to call attention to a past that, though significant, was probably never quite as glorious as we remember it to be. Rather, we’ll be telling stories and celebrating accomplishments in ways that magnify God’s faithfulness in our midst and assures us that whatever our future holds; God will be with us to uplift us and hold us and prosper us to His glory every single step of the way.
Football season has begun and many of you will be returning to your alma maters to take in some of the action on the field. As far as how the season goes, I won’t be making any predictions. I learned long ago that no one has that kind of crystal ball.
Well, actually, I am going to make one prediction. I predict that at some point this year, if your favorite team has ever won a championship of any kind, that you’ll see a bunch of former players line up before the game to be introduced as the champions from 1958 or 1978 or 1998. They’ll be lined up like little stones along the hash marks facing the press box, and before some enquiring mind can ask, “Who are those old guys out on the field?” the press box announcer will say, “Let’s give a big hand for the past champions who are back with us today!” In other words, the presence of those former champions is a memorial of a glorious past and also a statement of promise that if our team was capable of doing it before, there’s no reason to believe that we can’t do it again. Who knows? Maybe we can do it even this year.
Hold that thought as we launch out into what will prove to be an exciting year-long 75th Anniversary year. And if any enquiring mind might ask why we’re going to all of this trouble, be sure to explain to them that it all reminds us that the hand of the LORD is mighty and we need to worship and fear Him forever. And if the LORD helped us before, there’s every reason to believe that He will certainly do so again. Who knows? Maybe this year! Maybe, just maybe, even today!