064. The Jordanic Passage

The Jordanic Passage

Jos_3:17. ’93And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan.’94

Washington crossed the Delaware when crossing was pronounced impossible; but he did it by boat. Xerxes crossed the Hellespont with two million men, but he did it by an extemporized bridge. The Israelites crossed the Red Sea, but the same orchestra that celebrated the deliverance of one army sounded the strangulation of the other. This crossing in my text is different from all those. It was without the loss of a human life. It was without the loss of so much as a linchpin. It seemed as if the waters were driven away. As the priests, who were the vanguard of the army, came down and touched the brim of the river the waters fled away, and then it was as if all the dampness had been sponged off, as though the road by a towel had been wiped dry. The streets of Jerusalem were not more dry than the depths of that river.

Yonder go the army of the Israelites, the armed men in front, followed by the wives, the children, the flocks, and the herds. As they come down into the midst of the river, and the waters pile up in crystal wall, the passing multitudes look up and think of the peril if that wall should fall before the march is completed, and the people get to the other side, the bank amid the tamarisks and the oleanders. And so I think the mothers hugged their children closer to their hearts and hastened their pace. Quick now, get up on the other bank, all the host, the armed men, the wives, the children, the flocks, the herds lest this which seems to be a triumphal march, end in awful catastrophe.

Seated this morning on the shelving of limestone we look off upon the river, this wonderful river that Joshua crossed under rainbow arch woven out of the spray’97the river which afterward became the baptistery where Christ was sprinkled or plunged’97the river in which the borrowed axe-head miraculously swam at the prophet’92s order’97the river illustrious in the world’92s history for heroic faith and omnipotent deliverance, and typical of scenes to transpire in your life and mine, scenes enough to make us from sole of foot to crown of head thrill with gladness.

Standing this morning by the affrighted and fugitive river of Jordan, we learn in the first place that obstacles touched vanish. The priests came down at the head of the Israelitish host, and they did not wade in chin deep, or chest deep, or knee deep, or ankle deep; they with the foot just touched the rim of the water, and Jordan fled. So it was with a great many of the obstacles in your life and mine. They are tremendous in the distance, but when we advance upon them, when we touch them with our courage they are gone.

Paul and John in the Scriptures seemed to have especial antipathy to cross dogs. Paul says in Philippians, ’93Beware of dogs;’94 and John seems to shut the gate of heaven against all the canine species, when he says, ’93Without are dogs.’94 But I have been told that when those ferocious animals come upon you, if you can keep your eye upon them they retreat. Whether that is so or not I cannot say, but this I know, that many of the troubles and annoyances of life which hound you, if you will only turn upon them, and as they advance upon you, you advance upon them and you keep your eye of courage upon them and cry, ’93Begone!’94 they will slink and cower.

There is a beautiful tradition among the American Indians that Manitou was traveling in the invisible world, and that he came upon a hedge of thorns, and after a while he saw wild beasts glare upon him from the thicket, and after a while he saw an impassable river; but as he determined to proceed, did go on, the thorns turned to be phantoms, the wild beasts a powerless ghost, the river only the phantom of a river. And it is the simple fact of our lives that the vast majority of the obstacles in our way disappear when we march upon them. Jordan touched vanishes.

You see some duty in the future you do not want to perform. ’93Oh,’94 you say, ’93I haven’92t the physical courage for it, I haven’92t faith in God for it, I can’92t do it, I am not competent for the circumstance!’94 Go right on and do your whole duty, and the obstacles will be gone. The waters touched vanish. What is true when we are well and in great prosperity, we imagine may be true in the last hour of life. How many there are who are afraid of the Jordan of death! If I should ask all those Christians in this audience, who have no fear or agitation about the crossing from this world into the next, to rise, there would not be twenty persons in the house rising. Why, it is not your time to die. God never gives dying grace until you are going to die. We might as well expect martyr’92s grace when we are not called to be martyrs. It is the Jordan in the distance that is so terrible. When you come up to it it will depart. That is going to be true in all the histories’97not one exception’97of those who are the children of God.

Good old John Livingston used to have a great horror of leaving this world. He was in a sloop going from Elizabethport to New York, and there came a sudden gust of wind, and the probability was that the sloop would be destroyed, and the most affrighted man on board was John Livingston, and many were surprised that so good and gracious and glorious a man as John Livingston should be affrighted under such circumstances; but when at last that man was called to die, he was as calm as a child asleep on a bank of flowers. It is death in the distance, not death close by, that affrights the Christian. Jordan touched vanishes.

So it will be when your last hour comes. I say it in perfect confidence. I know it will be so. Christ, your priest, with bruised feet, will go ahead of you. He will put his foot to the brim of the water, and you will follow. The waters will fly and you will go through dryshod on beds of coral and flowers of heaven and paths of pearl.

O! Could We Make These Doubts Remove,

These Gloomy Doubts That Rise,

And See the Canaan That We Love,

With Unbeclouded Eyes,

Could We but Stand Where Moses Stood

And View the Landscape O’92er,

Not Jordan’92s Stream or Death’92s Cold Flood

Could Fright Us From the Shore.

Looking off upon this strange crossing of the river, I also learn the completeness of everything that God does. When the Jordan was bidden to halt, you would have supposed it would have overflowed and devastated the country. That would be the natural law. Halt a river in its march to the sea, and you destroy the country. But when God built an invisible dam across the Jordan so it halted, he built at the same time an invisible dam on either side the Jordan, so that the context says the waters stood up’97stood up’97they reared in their march. It was a complete miracle, complete in every respect, just like God’92s work, always complete.

But you would have said, ’93If the waters of the Jordan are drawn off it does not make any difference though there be two or three feet of water, the Israelites can easily wade through, and they will come up with saturated garments on the beach as people came up from a shipwreck.’94 No, it was better than that. You would have said, ’93If the waters of Jordan are drawn off, then there will be a bed of mud and slime through which the Israelites must pass. Draw off the waters of the Connecticut or the Hudson, or the Potomac, and there would be a bed of mud and slime impassable. It would take days and weeks for it to dry up.’94 But lo! the completeness of the divine miracle. The waters fly. The bed of the river is perfectly dry. They go through dryshod.

Oh! the completeness of everything that God does. Does he build a universe, it is a perfect clock running ever since it was wound up. Fixed stars the pivots, constellations the intermoving wheels, and ponderous laws the weights and mighty swinging pendulum. The stars in the dome striking midnight, and the sun with brazen tongue tolling the hour of noon. The wildest comet has on it the chain of a law it cannot break. The thistle-down that flies before the school-boy’92s breath is controlled by the same law that controls a whole universe. The rose-bush in your window is controlled by the same law that controls the tree of the universe, on which stars are ripening fruit, and on which God will some time put his hand and shake down the fruit. It is a complete universe. No astronomer has ever suggested an amendment.

Does God make a Bible, it is a complete Bible. Standing amid its dreadful and delightful truths, you seem to be in the midst of an orchestra, where the wailing over sin, and the shoutings over pardon, and the martial strains of victory, sound like the anthem of eternity. It seems like an ocean of truth on which God walks, sometimes in the darkness of prophecy, and sometimes in the splendor with which he walked on Galilee’97apostle answering to prophet, Paul to Isaiah, Revelation to Genesis. A complete book. It is the kiss of God on the soul of lost man.

Does God provide a Saviour, he is a complete Saviour. God, man’97divinity, humanity. He set up the starry pillars of the universe. He planted the cedars of Lebanon. He quarried the sardonyx and the chrysolite and the topaz for the wall of Heaven, putting down jasper for the foundation, and heaving up amethyst for the capstone, and made the twelve gates which are twelve pearls. A mighty Saviour, and yet a sympathetic Saviour. In one instant he thought out a universe, and yet, held by his mother’92s hand. All heaven adoring him, yet on earth called ’93this fellow.’94 Angels folding their wings over their faces and bowing before him, holy, holy, holy, yet called a sot and a blasphemer. Rocked in a boat on Gennesaret, and yet he it is that undirks the lightning; from the storm-cloud and dismasts Lebanon of its cedars. Rubbing his hand over the place where you have an ache or pain, and yet the stars of heaven the adoring gems of his right hand. Holding us in his arms when we take the last look at our dead; sitting beside us at the tombstone, and while we plant roses there, he plants consolations in our soul. Every chapter a stalk. Every paragraph a stem. Every word a rose. A complete universe. A complete Bible. A complete Saviour. A complete Jordanic passage. Everything he does is complete.

Again: I look off upon the wonderful scene of my text and I learn that between us and everything blight and beautiful and useful and prosperous, there is a river of difficulty that we must cross. ’93Oh!’94 said the Israelites to Joshua, ’93I wish I could get some of those grapes.’94 ’93Well,’94 said Joshua, ’93why don’92t you cross over and get them.’94 The grapes are always on the other side. You have to cross over to get them. That which costs nothing is worth nothing. God puts everything valuable a little out of our reach, that we may struggle for it. For the same reason he puts gold deep down in the mine, and pearls deep down in the sea, to make us dig and dive. We all understand that in worldly things. Would God we understood it in religious things. Nobody is surprised to read that Cornelius Vanderbilt blistered his hands rowing a ferryboat. Nobody is surprised to read that A. T. Stewart used to sweep out his own store. You can think of those who had it very hard who now have it very easy. Their walls blossom and bloom with pictures. Carpets that made foreign looms laugh now embrace their feet. The horses neigh and champ their bits at the doorway, the glided harness tinkling with silver, and the carriage rolling away like a beautiful wave of New York life.

Who is it? It is the boy who had all his estate slung over his shoulder in a cotton handkerchief. The silver on the harness of the dancing span is petrified sweat drops. That beautiful dress is the faded calico that God ran his hand over, and it became Turkish satin or Italian silk. Those diamonds are the tears which suffering froze as they fell. There is always a river of difficulty between us and anything that is worth having.

There was a river of difficulty between Shakespeare, the boy holding the horses at the London Theatre for a sixpence, and Shakespeare, the world’92s dramatist winning the applause of all nations by his incomparable tragedies. There was a river of difficulty between Benjamin Franklin, with a loaf of bread under his arm trudging along the street of Philadelphia, and Benjamin Franklin, the philosopher, outside of Boston, playing kite with the thunder storm. An indolent man was cured of his indolence by looking out of the window at night into another window, and seeing a man turning off one sheet of writing paper after another sheet of writing paper until almost the daybreak. Who was it that wrote until the morning? It was Walter Scott. Who was it that looked at him from the opposite window? Lockhart, after wards his illustrious biographer.

It is push and struggle and drive. There are mountains to scale, there are rivers to ford. Lord Mansfield, pursued of the press and pursued of the populace, said, ’93If a man die in behalf of the law and liberty of his country, he cannot die too soon.’94 And there has been struggle for everybody that gained anything for themselves, or gained anything for the Church, or gained anything for the world. We all understand it in wordly things? Why can we not understand it in religious things.

You think it is a mere accident that that old Christian knows so much about the Bible. Why, he was studying his Bible when you were reading your newspaper. He got strong by running the Christian race. In fifty Solferinos he learned how to fight. In a shipwreck he learned how to swim. It was by pounding the anvil of trouble that he became swarthy. Then when this Christian goes on and gets across all these other rivers of difficulty there is the River of Death still. Lieutenant Molineaux explored the Jordan, and he said he had several boats all split to pieces in the rapids of the Jordan. Some parts of the river are very dangerous, and he had his boats completely destroyed in trying to explore the river Jordan. And the River of Death has destroyed many. There is a gurgling in the water, there is a moaning in the air, there is a thunder in the sky, and God seems to write, ’93I will tread them in my wrath and trample them in my fury.’94

To some it seems a dreadful river to cross, but now here is the Christian coming. It is time for departure. He has crossed all the other rivers and here is the River of Death. His priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, with bruised feet, goes right on ahead of him and he comes to the water, and his breath gets shorter and shorter, and his last breath is gone as he touches the wave. But then all the billows toss their plumes and begin to sing: ’93O! death, where is thy sting? O! grave, where is thy victory?’94 ’93God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more sea, and there shall be no more death.’94

What a matter of congratulation it must be to those Israelites that they not only got through themselves, but their families with them. Here are the fathers and mothers climbing up the other bank, and here are their families coming right on with them. O! my brother, my sister will it not be grand, will it not be glorious, if we pass through ourselves in safety, and all our loved ones besides!

I was some time ago seated at my table at home, and my family were all there, and I said, ’93What a beautiful thing it would be if we could all get into one boat, and I could be the oarsman, and we could just pull away across the River of Death; all start together, all go together, and all land in heaven together.’94 That is not the way. It would not do to substitute our ignorance for God’92s wisdom. It is one by one, one by one. My mother, in her dying moments, said to my father’97they had been married sixty years’97’94father, wouldn’92t it be pleasant if we could both go together?’94 But no; it was three years apart. It is one by one.

Some of us who were brought up in the country remember when the summer was coming, warm summer weather, in our boyhood we used to ask mother to let us go barefoot, and we remember just the sensation when we put our uncovered foot upon the soft dust and the cool grass. And the time will come when we will cast off these sandals, which we must wear because there are so many sharp places on the road of life. We will cast off these sandals, and with unsandaled foot we will step on the soft bed of the river. Then with one foot in the bed of the river, with the other we will spring up on the other bank, and that will be heaven. It will not be a breaking down; it will be a lifting up; it will be an irradiation as was beautifully illustrated when the Christian husband was dying and he said to his wife, ’93How that candle flickers, Nellie; put it out. I shall sleep well to-night and waken in the morning.’94

Oh, how much comfort there is in this subject for all the bereft! You see our departed are not swamped in the waters, are not submerged. They have crossed over. That is all. The Israelites were just as certainly alive on the eastern bank of the Jordan as they were on the western bank of the Jordan, and our departed Christian friends are just as certainly alive now as they were before they crossed the River of Death. The respiration easier. The sight keener. All their aches and ailments left this side. An impassable barrier put between them and all human and Satanic pursuit. Crossed over. Not sick, not dead, not obliterated, not blotted out, but crossed over. Ought I not congratulate you, the bereft, at the thought that your friends are safe in heaven?

I remember that the Australia has been out now a good while, and I believe is nine days overdue, and there is a great deal of apprehension about the Australia. And I remember a few years ago when there was a great deal of apprehension about the City of Brussels. She was overdue. She left New York harbor for Liverpool. I think there were eight or ten days that she was overdue, and there was a great deal of apprehension on the part of the friends here about their friends on board that ship. The general impression was all through New York and in England, that the City of Brussels had gone down. But one day the news flashed from Liverpool, ’93The City of Brussels is coming up the harbor.’94 What a time of rejoicing it was in New York! Did we not do well to congratulate the people who had friends on board that they had got across safely, that they landed in Liverpool safely? How heartily we shook their hands in gladness, and am I not right in congratulating you, O Christian bereft, that your friends have got safely over! They have not gone down. They are harbored, crossed over. You would not call them back, would you? If you had the capacity, would you call them back? Would you call your aged parents back? Did they not have a struggle long enough? Was not the journey tedious enough? Did they not have ailments and sickness enough? Would you call your Christian father, your Christian mother back, if you could? Would you call your children back? Perhaps it would not be safe for the Lord to trust us with the power. But I do not think we could afford to call our children back to temptation and struggle, for life under the very best circumstances is a struggle. We could not afford to call them back. What! Would we have our departed friends cross the Jordan three times? Is not once enough? In addition to the crossing they have already made, would we have them cross back again? And then after many years had gone they would have to cross over again to the other side, for surely you would not want to keep them forever out of heaven. You would not want them to cross three times. The poet says:

Pause and Weep, Not for the Freed From Sin,

But That the Sigh of Love Would Bring Them Back Again.

I ask a question and the answer comes back in heavenly echo, ’93Will you never be sick again?’94 ’93Never’97sick’97again.’94 ’93Will you never be tired again?’94 ’93Never’97tired’97again.’94 ’93Will you never sin again?’94 ’93Never’97sin’97again.’94 ’93Will you never weep again?’94 ’93Never’97weep’97again.’94 ’93Will you never die again?’94 ’93Never’97die’97again.’94

O! ye army of departed kindred, I hail you from bank to bank. Wait for us. When our work is done meet us half way between the willowed banks of earth and the palm groves of heaven. There is one old hymn that rings through your soul today while I am preaching, words consecrated by many a dying lip, words we tried to sing at my father’92s departure, but all the voices broke down at the close of the first verse, broke in emotion:

On Jordan’92s Stormy Bank I Stand

And Cast a Wistful Eye

To Canaan’92s Fair and Happy Land,

Where My Possessions Lie,

O! The Transporting, Rapturous Scene

That Rushes On My Sight,

Sweet Fields Arrayed in Living Green

And Rivers of Delight.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage