The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1893-03-18
CROSSING JORDAN.
DR.. Talmage on the Surmouuting OF
Difficulties.

Lessons Drawn From the Children of Israel
Crossing tho Observation-Disclosures Vanish
When Touched Completeness of
Gods w~ork-River of Death.
In n late sermon at Detroit, Mich,
Rev. DIR. Talmage took for his subject
the Crossing of the Jordan by the
Children Of Israel" the text being from
Joshua iii. II: "And the priests that
bare the ark of the Covenant of the
Lord stood firm on dry ground in the
midst of the Jordan, and all the Israel
ties passed over or dry ground, until
all the people were passed clean over
Jordan" DR.. Talmage said:
Washington crossed the Delaware
when crossing was pronounced impos-
sible, but he did it by boat Xerxes
crossed the H~ellespont with two million
of men, but he did it by bridge. The
~Israelites crossed the Red sea, but the
same orchestra that celebrated the de-
~liverance of the n army sounded the
strangulation of the other. This Jor-
danic passage differs from all. There
was no sacrifice of human life-not so
much as the loss of n linch-pin. The
vanguard of the host, made up of
priests, advanced until they put
their foot at the brim of the river, when
Immediately the streets of Jerusalem
were no more dry than the bed of the
river, 1t was as If all the water had
been drawn off, and hen the dampness
had been soaked up with n sponge, and
then by a towel the road had been
wiped dry. Wonder goes a great army
OF Israelites, the hosts in uniform; fol-
lowing them the wives, the children,
the focks, the herds. The people look
up at the crystalline wall of the Jordan
as they pass, and think what an awful
disaster would come to them if, before
they got to the opposite bank of that
Ajalon wall, that wall should fall on
them; and the thought makes the
mothers hug their children close to their
hearts as they swiften their pace.
Sitting on the shelved limestone, L
look off upon that Jordan where Joshua
crossed under the triumphal arch of
the rainbow woven out of the spray;
the river which afterward became the
baptistry where Christ was s~prinkled
or plunged; the river where the AK
h borrowed ax-miraculously swan
at the prophets order; the river Illus
trious in the history of the world for
the heroic faith and omnipotent deliv-
erance, and typical scenes yet to trans
pire in your life and ~mine-scenes
enough to make us, from the sole of the
foot to the crown of the head, Jingle
with infinite gladness.
CNn-lfr. ~ k1,a cnatn - k1nk o.
frighted, fugitive river Jordan, l learn
for myself and you, first, that obstacles,
when they are touched, vanish. The
text says that when these priests came
down and touched the water-the edge
of the water with their teet-the water
parted. They did not wade in chin
deep, or waist deep, or knee deep, but
as soon as their feet touched the water
it vanished. And it makes me think
that almost all the obstacles of life
need only to be approached in order to
be conquered. Difficulties but touched
vanish. 1t is the trouble, the difficulty,
the obstacle far in the distance that
seems so huge and tremendous.
The apostles Paul and John seemed
to dislike cross dogs, for the apostle
Paul tells us in Philippians, Beware
of Dogs and John seems to shut the
gate of Heaven against all canine
species when he says, without are
dogs" But | have been told that when
those animals are furious if they come
Mt you, if you will keep your eye on
them and advance upon them, they
viii retreat. Whether that be so or
not, / cannot tell; but | do know that
the vast majority of the misfortunes
and trials and disasters of your life
that hound your steps, if you can only
get your y on them, and keep your
eye or them, and advance upon them,
and cry, "begone," they will stink and
cover.
There is a beautiful tradition among
the American Indians that Manitou
was travelling in the invisible world,
and one day he anne to a barrier OF
brambles and sharp thorns, which for
babe his going on, and there was a wild
beast glaring at him from the. thicket;
but, as he determined to go on his way.
he did pursue it, and those brambles
were found to be only phantoms, and
that beast was found to be a powerless
ghost, and the impossible river that
forbade him rushing to embrace the
Yaratilda proved to be only q phantom
river. Well, my friends, the fact is there
are a great many things that look ter
rible across our pathway, which. when
we advance upon them, are only the
phantoms, only the apparitions, only
the delusions of life. Difficulties touched
are conquered.
l always sigh before / begin to preach,
at the greatness of the undertaking,
but as soon as I start it becomes to me
an e~yhileration. And any duty under.
taken with a confident spirit becomes
pleasure, and the higher the duty the
higher the pleasure. Difficulties touched
are conquered. There are a great many
u people who are afraid of death in tho
future. There are a great many good
people who shudder in passing a grave
yard, and they hardly dare think Of
Canaan, because of the Jordan that in
tervenes; but once they are down on Q
sick bed, then all their fears are gone
the waters Of death dashing on the
beach are like the mellow voice of ocear
shells-they smell of the blossoms o.
the tree of life; the music of the heav
henly choirs comes stealing over the
waters, and to cross now is only a pleas
ant sail. How long the boat Is coming
Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Chris
the priest advances ahead, and the dy'
ing Christian goes over dry-shod or
coral beds, and flowers of heaven, an(
paths OF pearl.
Oh, could we make our doubts remove
Those gloomy doubts that rise,
And view the Canaan that we love
? With unbeclouded eyesl
Could we but climb where Moses stood,
And view the landscape DER.
Not Jordan's stream nor deaths cold flood,
Could fright US from the shore.
Again, this Jordanic passage teaches
me the completeness of everything tina
God does. When God put an invisible
dam across Jordon, and it was halted
1t would have been natural, you woult
have supposed, for the water to have
overlooked the region all about, ant
that great devastation would have takeI
; place. But when God put a dam il
front of the river he put a dam on thu
other side of the river, so that, accord
ing to the text, the water halted ant
reared up and stood there, and no
overlooking the surrounding country
Oh, the completeness of everything
hat God does!
One would have thought that, if thu
waters of Jordan had dropped unit
they were only two or three feet deep