Joshua 3

v1-6: The people of Israel had not "been told how they would cross the river," yet "they still went forward in faith, having been told that they would cross it." There are times when doing our duty brings difficulties that we cannot see a way past, but "we are to trust God to help us through them when we come to them."

v7-13: God repeats the miracle to show that He "has the same power to complete the salvation of his people that he had to begin it, for he is the Alpha and the Omega." When God made the world, He gathered the water in one place so dry land appeared, and here "the power he used in creation is the same power that is committed to and working for" His people.

v14-17: "Is there anything that God cannot do? What will he not do to perfect his people’s salvation?" We can be sure that when "our pilgrimage through this desert" of the present world is over, "death will be like this Jordan between us and the heavenly Canaan, but the ark of the covenant has prepared a way through it for us."

Joshua 4

v1-9: God knows what His people are like and how forgetful they are, so He provides ways for His works to be remembered.

v10-19: It was clear that the stopping of the river was not by some natural cause but by God's power, because as soon as His purpose for stopping the river "had been fulfilled... the waters immediately flowed again."

v20-24: Parents should be ready "to help their children come to know the word and works of God in their early years, so that they may be trained up in the way they should go." What parents "have learned from the written word" they are to pass on to their children.