IF ROCKS COULD TALK

April 10, 2022

LUKE 19:37-40, ^NIV
When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

Joshua 4:1-7, ^NIV
When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.” So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is
to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”

1. If Rocks Could Talk They Would TESTIFY

Joshua 4:5-6, ^NIV
Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you.

LUKE 19:37, ^NIV
When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:

1 Peter 2:5, ^NIV
You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house…

2. If Rocks Could Talk They Would PRAISE

Joshua 4:9-10, ^NIV
Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant had stood. Now the priests who carried the ark remained standing in the middle of the Jordan until everything the Lord had commanded Joshua
was done by the people, just as Moses had directed Joshua.

Joshua 4:19-24, ^NIV
On the tenth day of the first month the people went up from the Jordan and camped at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho. And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their parents,
‘What do these stones mean?’ 22 tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.”

3. If Rocks Could Talk They Would REMEMBER

Joshua 4:21-22, ^NIV
He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 22 tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’

Judges 2:6-7, ^GNT
Joshua sent the people of Israel on their way, and each man went to take possession of his own share of the land. As long as Joshua lived, the people of Israel served the Lord, and even after his death they continued to do so as long as the leaders were alive who had seen for themselves all the great things that the Lord had done for Israel.

Judges 2:10, ^GNT
That whole generation also died, and the next generation forgot the Lord and what he had done for Israel.

LUKE 19:37, ^NIV
When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen…