Memorial Stones
by Pastor Jim Jester
February 25, 2024
SCRIPTURE READING: Joshua 4:1-3
As soon as the entire nation had completed its crossing of the Jordan, the LORD spoke to Joshua. He said, 2 “Gather together twelve men from the people—one man from each tribe—3 and tell them, ‘Pick up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan where the priests’ feet were standing, bring them along with you, and put them down where you camp tonight.’” (ISV)
INTRODUCTION
It is a new year, January and February have special significance, so I thought of Memorials. I need not mention what February is about; besides the Dresden holocaust against Germany on 13-14 February, 1945.
January is often referred to as “Generals Month” since no less than four famous Confederate Generals claimed January as their birth month: James Longstreet, Jan. 8, 1821, Robert E. Lee, Jan. 19, 1807, Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson, Jan. 21, 1824, and George Pickett, Jan. 28, 1825. It is ironic that MLK day sits between two of these birthdays, Lee and Jackson.
Lee-Jackson Day was a state holiday in Virginia begun in 1889. Its observation was eliminated in 2020, replaced by Election Day as a state holiday. Confederate History month, begun in 1994, happens to be in April because the Confederate Memorial Day falls during this month. It has been observed by seven southern states.
Of course we realize that all Confederate memorials have been under attack and nearly all of them removed. The Robert E. Lee Monument in Richmond, Virginia, was the first installation on Monument Avenue in 1890, and would ultimately be the last monument removed from that site. The statue was taken down on September 8, 2021, then sent to storage.
Now that the Confederate flag has been all but outlawed as a symbol of “racist hate,” guess what the next step is? Yes, going after the Stars & Stripes! An apartment complex in Oregon actually sent a letter to residents saying that anyone who displayed an American flag sticker on their vehicle would have to remove it, or face eviction; because a lot of non-whites live in the complex. Then there ’s the white woman in Texas, with a daughter serving in Iraq, who had to remove the American flag in her office because an African immigrant found it offensive.
We often hear so-called conservatives on radio or TV brag about being “colorblind” and praising MLK and the “civil rights” laws of the 1960 ’s; which happen to be the very cause of many serious problems they claim to be troubled by. James Edwards wrote about this recently, saying:
“Earlier this summer I attended the big annual convention known as Freedom Fest… Freedom Fest has a conservative/libertarian emphasis. ‘At Freedom Fest, we envision a world where every person experiences maximum liberty in every aspect of their lives,’ their official website states.
Yet, at this event supposedly devoted to creating a world where every person has ‘maximum liberty,’ one speaker after another beamed as they quoted MLK, holding him up as a paragon of freedom and liberty…
The notion of people who are supposedly committed to creating ‘maximum liberty’ praising MLK is simply too bizarre for words. Hearing it myself repeatedly over the course of a few days had me feeling as if I was in an episode of The Twilight Zone.
Do 4th of July parades feature tributes to Benedict Arnold? Do animal rights activists declare their love for Colonel Sanders? Do the people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima constantly tell us how much they admire Harry Truman?
None of those scenarios would be crazier than conservatives praising MLK. Conservatives want maximum liberty? Well, here are just a few of the liberties that MLK and his civil rights movement destroyed: Freedom of association, freedom of contract, freedom of religion, freedom from crime, freedom to live around people we want to live around, freedom to do business with people we want to do business with, the freedom of states to set qualifications for voting and to define what qualifies as a lawful marriage, the freedom to give our kids a good education in safe schools, and so much more.
When MLK was alive, no conservative supported him or his movement. In fact, opposition to the civil rights movement was one of the hallmarks of conservatism; it was an essential position. Many great Southern Democrats such as Lester Maddox said that if the civil rights movement succeeded, the Christian way of life in America was finished. These men were prophets, and nearly everything they predicted has come true. But I ’m not sure that even they could have foreseen that in just a few decades people calling themselves ‘conservatives’ would be praising the man who deconstructed America.” ———[So ends the Edwards quote]
The Placing of Robert E. Lee in Hell…a Cultural Analysis
by Reverend Bet McAtee
“The task of history, therefore, once the world beyond the truth has disappeared, is to establish the truth of this world.” (Karl Marx)
“The march of Providence is so slow, and our desires so impatient; the work of progress is so immense and our means of aiding it so feeble; the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope.” (General Robert E. Lee)
In the last week a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee, on his horse Traveler, was melted in effigy in a fiery furnace heated, we were told, to 2,250 degrees Fahrenheit. This was something that could have been done quite apart from the fanfare and hoopla; as the enemies of Lee and what he symbolizes had already achieved victory years prior with the removal of the Lee statue from the public square in Charlottesville, Virginia. However, old feuds run deep and the descendants of the victors in the War of Northern Aggression were compelled by their hatred to add insult to injury. Thus, one of the communiques of the Marxist left (The Washington Post) felt it necessary to rub large amounts of salt in a very old wound by placing a photo of Lee burning in a hell-like furnace. This was the Jacobin Left gleefully rubbing the noses of Heritage Americans in Jacobin triumph and our defeat.
My immediate thought upon seeing the photo and reading the article was, “and this is what they wish they could do with all of us who find this action a testimony to vile Marxist revolutionary behavior.”
In this smelting of Lee we see once again the Marxist disciples reaching to accomplish what Marx spoke of in our lead-in quote. The Left is working on the task, and has been working on that task since its inception in Genesis 3, of scrubbing away the world beyond the truth so as to establish their truth of this world. The melting of Lee is not merely an attack on Heritage Americans, it is an attack on the Biblical metaphysics that gives meaning to reality in favor of a humanist epistemology, wherein history and Marxist historians are given the task of “establishing ‘truth ’ in this world.”
They have been at this task in regards to General Lee at every turn. Consider that in 2021 the Cathedral of the Rockies finished replacing a stained-glass windowpane that the church felt was racist and non-inclusive.
The offending window featured Robert E. Lee standing shoulder to shoulder with Washington and Lincoln. Lee was changed out here for the first Black female Bishop in Methodism with ties to Boise. Lee was probably pleased to be finally removed from the same windowpane as Lincoln.
Also in 2021, Robert E. Lee IV, a “descendent” of the General, made some minor headlines when he denounced his forefather by offering to whatever microphone he could find that, “We have made my ancestor an idol of white supremacy, racism and hate.” One wonders who the “we” is that RGL IV is referring to? This same descendant was quoted in 2016 in the Washington Post, “of the shame he felt over his great-great-great-great uncle ’s legacy.”
A great irony in all this is that Lee himself was relieved that slavery had ended. The man, if we are to take his own words seriously, was pleased at its end:
“I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interests of the South. So fully am I satisfied of this, as regards Virginia especially, that I would cheerfully have lost all I have lost by the war, and have suffered all I have suffered, to have this object attained.”
However, to the Marxists this is irrelevant. History will be what they and their “historians” say it is, and may the truth that is beyond this world be damned.
In all this we need to keep in mind that Robert E. Lee is not the only one who is being tossed upon the bonfires of vanity either by way of removal, destruction, or defacing. The symbols of Western Civilization and American History are everywhere being cast aside. Everyone from Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler of American War of Independence fame, to U.S. Grant, to Christopher Columbus, to George Washington to Juan Ponce de Leon, to abolitionists Matthias Baldwin, and John Greenleaf Whittier. At this point it is past obvious that this is not merely an attack on the Old South, but a revolt against every semblance of civilization and order that has any whiff of Christianity in favor of the anarchy of old chaos and dark night.
Anybody who is familiar with the nature of Revolution understands that once the revolutionary mindset gets rolling, eventually the Revolution eats its own. The Revolutionaries started with the statues raised to the honored Confederate dead, but the frenzy extends now even to 19th century abolitionists who may have been animated in their opposition to slavery due to their Christian principles.
Also let’s not miss here that all the statues have one other thing in common: all the symbols of the West being pulled down are of white people. For those with eyes to see, all this statuary removal is clearly a concrete expression of the desire to rid the West of the white man. The irony here is that a great percentage of those pulling down the statuary are white people who don ’t realize that soon enough the Revolution will also throw them on the bonfires regardless of how many white statues they helped pull down.
Those who are aware of the way worldview warfare works understand that this current phenomenon of pillorying the statues of our heroes is in no way something new. If one looks at the era of the Reformation one finds the Reformers tearing down Roman Catholic statuary left and right. If one looks at the era of the rise of the Revolution in France or the Bolshevik Revolution one finds statues and symbols being pulled down. Even in the war against Iraq, one of the streaming images instantly broadcast was of an American tank pulling down a statue of Saddam Hussein. One way a person can know that there is worldview change in the air, is by seeing what we are seeing now: The assault on the symbols of the people who are being replaced.
This brings us to the observation of George Orwell: “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
The attack on General Lee as well as the pulling down of the symbols of the Christian West is, proximately, in the service of destroying the Christian White man. Behind that is the ultimate purpose of stripping from Jesus Christ the title of “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” The Marxist mob hates Christ, and because they hate Christ, they hate the Christian White man who has been, in God ’s providence, the carrier of Christian civilization, and so the fragrance of Christ. That fragrance is deeply hated by the Left and so they cast us all in Hell by snapping a photo of Lee ’s face as red hot and molten. There is very little more that these Marxists demons could do to inform us that they intend to wipe out anybody who opposes the Revolution.
In one respect, this mockery of Lee, Christianity, and Jesus Christ is a good thing. It is good because it draws a bright line between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. This kind of thing establishes the antithesis between those who are “of their father the devil” and those on the Lord ’s side.
We are approaching a crescendo on this matter. Pat Buchanan summarized this nicely a few years ago: “In half a lifetime, many Americans have seen their God dethroned, their heroes defiled, their culture polluted, their values assaulted, their country invaded, and themselves demonized as extremists and bigots for holding on to beliefs Americans have held for generations.”
When the crescendo finally arrives you can be sure that, just as during previous historical crescendos on this count, there will be blood in the street — just as there was blood in the streets in Paris in 1789, in the streets of Harper ’s Ferry in 1860, in the streets of Moscow in 1918, in the streets of Budapest in 1919, in the streets of Peking in 1949 and in the streets of Havana in 1956. Whenever these Christ-haters are able to expand their revolutionary mindset, the blood begins to flow by the gallon.
For those with their ears close to the ground, none of this is surprising in the least. With the success of the Civil Rights movement, animated and financed as it was by the Communist International, the handwriting was on the wall. Then, in the 1980 ’s when the Marxist Martin Luther King was officially placed in our pantheon of heroes it was only a matter of time till American heroes who stood for the principals exactly opposite to those of King would be pushed out of our pantheon of heroes. King is taken out of the closet and is replaced in the closet by Lee, Jackson, Washington, Jefferson, etc.
So, the Jacobin War of Northern Aggression continues apace. It never really ended and it will not end until Christianity and the white man is wiped out and incinerated in just the same way that one of the greatest Americans of our history was incinerated.
In the end this casting of Gen. Robert E. Lee into Hell was a testimony to the greatness of the man. The man was so great — such a Christian hero — that he now is, to the Left, the embodiment of the Christian White man.
It is my prayer that those responsible for this desecration of Robert E. Lee, for this further cynical attack on Biblical Christianity, for this further attempt to snuff out the Lordship of Jesus Christ, will result in an eternity of their seeing that red and molten image of Lee ever before them.
Sic semper tyrannis (“Thus always to tyrants”). The state motto of Virginia.
__________ [End of article by McAtee]
STONES OF MEMORIAL
Genesis 28:18, “And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.”— (Jacob’s pillar stone at Luz, renamed Bethel; now in Scotland.)
Genesis 31:45, “And Jacob took a stone, and set it up for a pillar.”— (On the occasion of the Covenant between Jacob & Laban)
Genesis 35:14, “And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he talked with him, even a pillar of stone: and he poured a drink offering thereon, and he poured oil thereon.” — (Where God spoke to Jacob at Bethel.)
I Samuel 7:12, “Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the LORD helped us.” — (God’s intervention in a battle.)
Nearly every nation has adopted this method: The Egyptian obelisks, megalithic monuments of the Celts, Stonehenge and the Avebury in England; stones that are supposed by some to be, not temples nor burial places, but memorials of some battle or event.
The opening text tells us of God’s directions to Joshua to set a Memorial after Israel had crossed the Jordan river. We read from the previous chapter (3) what has already taken place:
“So the people set out from their tents to cross the Jordan River, with the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant in full view of the people. 15 When the priests who carried the ark entered the Jordan River, as their feet touched the water’s edge(The Jordan River overflows all of its banks daily during the harvest season.), 16 the water flowing downstream from above stood still in a single location, a great distance away at Adam, a city near Zarethan. The water that flowed south toward the sea in the Arabah (that is, the Dead Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed opposite Jericho. 17 The priests who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan River, while all Israel crossed on dry ground until the entire nation had finished crossing the Jordan River.” (Jos. 3:14-17, ISV)
Is it not interesting that the waters backed up as far as the city of Adam? What a coincidence (or is it?)! I think there’s a spiritual application here, that is: God provided a Salvation that goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden, where Adam failed, resulting in the Fall of Adamkind.
As the previous generation who crossed the Red Sea, now some forty years later, the presence of God was there to stay the water so Israel could pass through to the other side. The priests stood still and allowed the entire nation to pass before they continued out as well.
What a memorable event! We continue reading from chapter 4:
And he [Joshua] said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of Jordan, and let every one of you take up a stone on his back, one for every tribe of the children of Israel: 6 So that this may be a sign among you; when your children say to you in time to come, ‘What is the reason for these stones?’ 7 Then you will say to them, ‘Because the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the Lord’s agreement; when it went over Jordan the waters of Jordan were cut off’ and these stones will be a sign for the children of Israel, keeping it in their memory for ever.” (Jos. 4:5-7, BBE)
A memorial is to remind us of the provision of our God, including our forefathers who have preceded us in the faith. These twelve stones, one representing each of the tribes (Jos. 4:4), were erected in Gilgal (v. 19). They gave fathers the opportunity of telling their children of the miraculous passage of the nation of Israel and the Ark of the Covenant across the flooded river.
The unity of the twelve tribes was to be preserved in this Memorial. The very river which should afterwards separate the eastern tribes from the western, furnished from its bed the materials for a Memorial which should bind Israel together in the memory of a common mercy to all its families.
Twelve other stones were placed in the riverbed and would be visible when the waters were low; not during flood season.
Joshua 4:9, “And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests which bare the ark of the covenant stood…”These stones were set up where the priests bearing the ark stood, while the others were set up where the Israelites rested for the night (Gilgal). It has been asked why stones should be placed as a memorial in the Jordan itself, where no man could see them. The answer is simple. They were not placed in the center of Jordan, but at some distance from its banks. They were placed where the priests stood, that is;at the brink of the Jordan, which at that time, had overflowed its banks (Jos. 3:15) and so much larger.
Joshua 4:10, “For the priests which bare the ark stood in the midst of Jordan, until every thing was finished that the LORD commanded Joshua to speak unto the people, according to all that Moses commanded Joshua: and the people hasted and passed over.”Then, when all had safely crossed, the ark of God was borne across the bed of the river, and as soon as the feet of the priests touched the highest point that the waters had reached on the other side, they returned to their place, and all was as it had been before. No wonder the Israelites erected a double memorial of a scene so glorious as this!
CONCLUSION
It is said that this stone Memorial within the banks of Jordan, were the same stones that John the Baptist referred to when he said: “Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.”(Lk. 3:8)
I Peter 2:5, “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.”
