let me ask you a question what do you draw on  a map when you come to the edge of the world   as you know it do you know that back during Roman  times map makers would often write the words quote   here are the Lions to mark the areas that they had  never before explored later during medieval days   adventurers would draw dragons and sea serpents  and other ominous-looking fictional animals on   the edges of their maps the sketches of dangerous  beasts and mythical sea creatures invoke the harm   that sailors feared to encounter when entering  previously uncharted territory well you know

today it seems that is where we find ourselves  on the edge of the world as we know it anxious   to find out what lies ahead and it reminds me of  another time when a nation of some three million   people face their own uncharted territory the  stories told in Joshua chapter three and it may   be the best passage in the Bible to get us ready  for what’s ahead you see Joshua and the people   of Israel were about to experience the greatest  moment in their nation’s history the land which   almighty God had promised to their father Abraham  was now in sight in the book of Deuteronomy Moses

described that land in these graphic terms here’s  what he said for the Lord your God is bringing   you into a good land a land of Brooks of water of  fountains and springs that flow out of the valleys   and hills a land of wheat and barley of vines  and fig trees and pomegranates a land of olive   oil and honey a land in which you will eat bread  without scarcity in which you will lack nothing   a land whose stones are iron and whose Hills you  can dig copper this land that Moses wrote about   was a special place that God had promised to his  people it was actually called the promised land

and throughout her history the people of Israel  looked forward to the day when they would occupy   this special territory forty years before this  moment Israel had been on the verge of going   into the land and God had sent 12 spies into the  land unfortunately for that generation when the   spies returned to Kadesh Barnea 10 of them were  overwhelmed with the what-ifs of entering the   promised land in numbers chapter 13 we read these  words and they gave the children of Israel a bad   report of the land which they had spied out saying  the land through which we have gone as spies is

a land that devours its inhabitants and all the  people whom we saw in it are men of great stature   God was pretty angry with that generation because  of their unbelief and he promised that they would   never see the land and so in Joshua 5 6 we read  and the children of Israel walked 40 years in the   wilderness till all the people who were men of  war who came out of Egypt were consumed because   they did not obey the voice of the Lord so after  40 years of wandering in the desert because of   their disobedience the people of Israel are now  standing on the border of their fulfilled dream

behind them lay the wilderness and the graves of  their disobedient parents who had not believed   God but before them awaiting their possession was  the land that flowed with milk and honey the land   of promise the Bible tells us that between the  Israelites and the fulfillment of their dreams   stood the Jordan River now the Jordan River was  not usually a frightening body of water I mean   most of the time it was about 100 feet wide but  during the spring harvest season the river rose   to the flood stage it overflowed its banks and  instead of being 100 feet wide it was 1 mile