News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-10-11
THE |. S. S. LESSON.
INTERNATIONAL LESSON FO Z
OCTOBER IL,
Lesson Text: Crossing the Jor-
dam" Josh. iii. 517 Golden
Text lisa. xiii. 2-Commen-
tary on the Lesson.

n our last lesion, the people also encouraged
! him by promising obedience and by praying
| the Lord to be with him ii, 1918. Then
follows the record of the two spies sent to
! Jericho, their reception and protection by
! Rahab, their promise of deliverance to her
| and all belonging or related to her and the
! true token of the scarlet line to be bound in
| her window. Three days the resurrection
| period have passed and now they are about
| to cross the Jordan and enter the land; but
! ere doing so they are instructed that the ark
of the covenant borne by the priests the
LeviteS, is to go in advance of the host two
thousand cubits, and they are not to come
near unto it, that they may know the way
| by which they must go; and the reason IS
given in these " ordS: I'VE have not passed
this way heretofore How like this is to
any new step or undertaking we are about to
take, and not only So is it not true of every
day of our life that we have not passed this
way heretofore and therefore we must stead
tasty look upon Him who when He putteth
forth His sheep, goeth before them:
5. "Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow
the Lord will do wonders among you.n Ii
We were more separate from sin and unbe-
lief, we would see more of the wonderful
works of God. In one place Jesus could not
do many mighty works because of Their I'M
belief; and there is no doubt but the unbelief
and worldlineSs of Christians to- day binders
His doing wonders among US. If we cannot
rid Others of these hindrancGS, we can at least
put away from our own hearts and lives all
that grieyes Him; and if we will only let Him
sanctify to Himself and His service We
shall as individuals see and know mora of
the wonders of His love and grace.
&. Take up the ark of the covenant and
pass over before the people, To the people
he had said: "SanctltY yourselves" and now
these are his orders to the priests, who were
always supposed to be sanctifed inasmuch
as they were set apart for the special service
of the sanctuary. All true believers are
priests unto Col REV. l., 5; v, 1Jl and should
ever consider themselves set apart to His
service. The Ark of the Covenant the
symbol of the presence of the Lord; for the
incorruptible wood, covered within and
without with pure god, speaks to US of the
pure humanity and the divinity of Christ;
the propltiatory or mercy seat tells us of
Christ, our Precipitation; the tables of the
law in the ark remind us of the saying con-
cernmg Christ: THY law is within my
heart, and the Lord dwelt above the mercy
seat between the cherubim from whence He
made known His will. When, therefore, we
see the priests bearing the ark of the cove
nant, we are reminded that we as priests are
Christ bearers, and are so to put on and ear
about everywhere the Lord Jesus that there
shall be seen in Us not the self life, but His
meekness and love and gentleneSs and
patience,
T. 81 will begin to magnify thee in the
sight of all Israel" God always honors
those who honor Him, and yet the honor is
all HIS own and shows forth His glory, for
this is the great end of our existence, to
glorify God. When the apostles, filled with
the spirit, spoke and wrought in the name of
Jesus the people wondered and took knOwl-
edge of them that they had been with Jesus.
The confidence of Potiphar in Joseph was
because he saw that the Lord was with
Joseph, and this magnifying of Joshua was
that all Israel might know that the same
Lord who was with Moses was now with
Joshua. If we sincerely desire above all else
that Christ may be magnitied i'll us, he viii
surely do it and use us for His glory.
8. STAND still in Jordan. With Their
feet in the water, they were to stand on the
brink of Jordan and see the wonders of the
Lord. They were to march right into the
river ere the waters would divide; we are to
20 right forward, even though it seem i'm
possible and He will at the right time open
the way, not an hour or a day too soon, but
sometimes as it seems only when we have
gone to the last extremity and cannot take
another step.
9. Hear the words of the Lord your
God" What a privilege and what an honor
to be permitted to speak or to hear the
words of the Lord. As ministers or evangel-
lists or teachers we should remember that it
is our privilege first to hear the words of the
Lord for our own souls and then to speak
from our hearts in the power of the spirit
the words of the Lord to others. The COM
mand to Ezekiel is the command to us,
Speak with Ny words unto them" ttz
ill, A.
10 THE living God is among you" Jere-
m ah calls Him ''the true God the living
God and an everlasting king der. x, IOJ
Darius calls Him the living GOD aud
steadfast forever Dan. vi, 20 Jesus
Himself, appearing to John in Patmos, says,
Il am the First and the Last and the Living
One, alive forevermore. Rev. l., II r. VI
If we lived near to God as jeremiah
Daniel or John, our lives would testify that
the God whom we serve is a living GCd, a
life-giving God, ever present and Orl<jnG
in fbTOnph ne II 10 lat
of Baal to cry a.ond, Perhaps their God was
asleep or on a journey. When churches do
the strange things that many do in our days,
it would be well to ask if their Col is asleep
or Indifferent, or needing to be propitiat ed,
or grown poor or some such question touch
ing the case in hand.
FHe will without fail drive out from be-
fore you the Canaanites." 1t is implied here
that He will do this through them as His
servants and soldiers, they being obedient to
Him and He fighting with them and in them
against their enemies Now we find they
were not obedient, and consequently Jebusites
and Cana9niteS and others were not com
pletely driven out, but became thornS and
snareS to them. Judges i, ii, iii).) 1t is
written that Jesus shall save His people from
their sins, but how few will acknowledge
that He saves them from their sirs, for
they know too well that they are not
saved from the very common and be-
setting sins of anger, Impotence, fretfulness
instead of yielding themselves to Him to be
c.eanSed and kept they, like Israel make a
league with the enemy instead of taking
most determined stand against all and every
form of sin.
II. "The ark of the covenant of the Lord
of all the earth" This is the first time that
we fiud this title in full it reminds us of the
words of Melchizedek, ''the most high God,
possesSor of heaven and EARTH Gen. xiv,
49,; and the expression in the prophets, 1.-THE
| ord nj ba mol nth 1jv =. oh
lv. ID: /ech. w., Il; vi, 81 and the thought
that our Redeemer is the Lord of all the earth
". 10 should make US very joyful in Him,
and ready to trust Him under all circum-
stances, obey Him at all times and love Him
with the whole heart, extolling Him in every
possible way.
~. Take twelve men out of the tribes of
Israel" The reason for choosing these
twelve is foun in the next chapter: They
were to take twelve stones from the midst of
Jordan, where the priests feet stood who
bore the ark, and set them up for memorial
on the other side of Jordan, so that they
could in days to come point their children to
those stones and tell them how their fathers
had come over Jordan on dry land: Joshua
also set up twelve stones in the midst of
Jordan where the priests had stood. These
two memorials testified to the mighty hand
of the Lord, that Israel might fear the Lord
their God forever, and that all the earth
might know the hand of the Lord (iv, 2D.
IL. 1T shall come to pass" How could
Joshua speak so positively about this very
unlikely event: Why did he not speak more
cautiously and say, we trust or hope that it
Will thus come to pass, will try and see
what can be done? He believed God: he
knew his power; he had not a shadow of n
doubt but that it would be just as God had
told him.
"As soon as the soles of the feet of the
priests shall rest in the waters Not as they
drew nigh, nor before they came into the
river but only when their feet actually stood
in the water. Who can tell how many vic
tories we lose by being afraid, by holding back
because of difficulties. instead of going right
forward into the difficulty in the name of the
Lord!
i4-le. ''And it came to pass When God
speaks 1t must come to pass; it must always
be just as He says, even as when in the be-
ginning God said: Let there be light, and
there was light. He only needs TO speak and
it is done Blessed are those who believe. for
there shall be a performance of the things
told us from the Lord.
II. "The priests stood firm on dry ground
in the midst of Jordan" The midst of a
river is not place to look for dry ground.
nor is wall of such unstable material as
water likely to encourage one to stand firm.
but the One whose name is Wonderful was
with them and was doing wondroDsly Fire
air, earth or water are all the same to Him
80 far as helps or hinderances are concerned
Lesson Helper.
THE tiger which escaped from a cir
Gus in Connecticut more than a week
ago, and caused no little uneasiness to
farmers in the northeastern part of the
State, was captured by the circus en-
ployes. They located the animal in