All right, if you wanna turn
back over to Joshua 22. Just have to set myself up here. Before we look into this passage
of scripture, let's look to the Lord in prayer. Father, we ask
you that you would be with us this morning. Lord, I don't have anything to
speak apart from your word and from your spirit guiding me,
and Lord, I would pray that you would guide me in my words to
exalt Christ, to exalt his gospel, to feed and to teach your sheep. Lord, I pray that you would be
with this church. Pray that all who know of this
church, love this church, would pray for us, that they would
pray that we would be able to move forward
from this point on, that God would give us guidance, that
God would give us leadership, that God would give us grace
in this moment. But for today, for right now,
Lord, I pray that you would help us to be attentive to your word,
to listen to what the spirit of God and the word of God teach
us. I ask this in Jesus' precious name, amen. One thing about the people of
God is that we're sinners. And in every action that goes
on, the flesh and the spirit are battling against one another. And you can be certain, and I
think we see it in this passage, or I hope that we see it in this
passage, how much we and they as a people of God had in common. Because when you look at this,
and just to kind of lay out the passage really quickly, because
I can't go through every verse if we want to get out of here
before dinner, because we're having a dinner for Bonnie, right? Anyway, that's my lame attempt
at humor. But in the outline here, you
have the first nine verses. And you may recall from the end
of chapter 21 there's this great promise that we're told that
God had fulfilled in bringing the people into the land and
fulfilling his good word but there's kind of the administrative
trivia that needs to be done after that and I say trivia I
mean nothing in the word of God is trivial but in reality this
is akin to those who When you get out, maybe you serve in the
military, serve in a war situation, and you get out, you get your
DD-214 and your VA benefits, and you go buy a house in the
suburbs, right? So a lot of that is what's happening
here. They're in the land, Joshua summons
them, and he brings up a couple of things that we do need to
talk about here before we can go into the passage. So you may
remember, and I know Joe, when he went through Joshua chapter
one, brought this up as well, and he went back to number 32,
but in number 32, and in Joshua 1, 12, I think, there's this
matter of the two and a half tribes. And the two and a half
tribes had asked Moses first, back in number 32, hey, we have
a lot of cattle, We don't want to cross the Big Sioux River
into the Promised Land. I'll let you decide if that's
South Dakota or Iowa. But we don't want to cross the
Jordan River because there's a good place for cattle here,
and we want to stay here. And Moses essentially chews them
out, but he allows it. He permits it, says God permits
it. And then the same thing in Joshua
1. Joshua strictly charges them that, hey, you're not off the
hook until all of your brothers and sisters are in the land and
the mission is done. If you look at verse 2, he says,
you have done all that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded.
And he's talking again about that passage back in Numbers,
and you have obeyed me, he's talking about Joshua chapter
one, for a long time now to this very day you have not deserted
your brothers, but have carried out the mission that the Lord
your God gave you. And I'm gonna skip down a little
bit here, but he says that, it says in verse six that Joshua
blessed them and sent them away and they went to their homes.
So if you can imagine this, they're at Shiloh. It wasn't Jerusalem,
it was Shiloh that was a place of worship at that time, the
tent of meeting and the tabernacle and the altar where the only
authorized sacrifice could happen. That's where they were at. And
he gathers everybody together and says essentially, well done,
here's your goodies, here's your, spoils from the war, and now
you are free to go back home. And it says, and there's a lot
of repetition in the passage, you may have noticed when I read
it. I didn't keep track of how many times they said the Reubenites,
Gadites, and half-tribe of Manasseh, but it's quite a few times. So,
verse 9, they left the Israelites at Shiloh in Canaan to return
to Gilead, their own land. which they had acquired, and
I want you to note this because I know there's some controversy
about this in some commentators. I think the more fundamentalist
they are, the more it comes out. They acquired it in accordance
with the command of the Lord through Moses. So if this was
a movie, you'd wait for the credits to roll, right? They're heading
back home, but Like some movies and TV shows, you know, you look
and it's like, oh, there's a half hour left, right? Something's
going to happen. They've got to find a way to
create a conflict here. And verse 10 talks about that
deed that nearly undid everything. So verse 10, we read, when they
came to Gelioth near the Jordan in the land of Canaan, The Reubenites,
the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh built an imposing
altar there by the Jordan. So just a quick note, if you
do have another translation other than the NIV, you'll probably
notice it doesn't say, well, maybe it's another verse, but
essentially it isn't as dogmatic about where the altar is. I believe the original says something
along the lines that it is on the Jordan River, and the assumption
made by our translators here is that it was on the Canaan
side. Either way, whether it's on this side of the Big Sioux
or that side, if it's in a prominent spot, it's right at the edge
of the territory. And keep in mind, the Jordan
was the division between the promised land and the inheritance
of the 9 1/2 or 10 tribes, and the 2 1/2 east of the Jordan. And there's some speculation
here that if you remember from when they went into the land, there
was a water that was parted, and they took the 12 stones out
of the river, that that memorial was nearby. But our account doesn't
talk about it. But the key here is they built
an imposing altar, a big altar, a large altar, that was great
in size, which is why it was translated as it was here. And it looked like the altar
of the sort that was used to sacrifice animals. So that's the background. Here's some of the good and the
bad that comes up. And it's interesting because
I listened to a few sermons and read a few newer commentators.
The newer, I'll put reformed in air quotes, but the newer
reformed commentators really love to emphasize how right the
10 tribes were for being ready to go to war. They're there to
fight for the holiness of God. But understand what happens here
in verse 11. When the Israelites heard that
they built the altar, not when they talked to the two and a
half tribes, when they heard about this altar, the whole assembly
gathered at Shiloh to go to war against them. Now later we read
that there was this delegation of a handful of people led by
Phineas to go to talk to them. But understand, they thought
they had gotten their discharge papers and essentially they mobilized
their armies And they brought their armies close by. So this was then a, hey, I'll
pick on Eric. Hey, Eric, what you're doing
I'm a little bit worried about. Let's talk about it. No, it's
me gathering everybody in my family with their guns and showing
up. Hey, Eric. Right? There's a little bit different.
I guess, nuance to that conversation versus the previous one. So they show up, ready to go
to war, and the Israelites sent Phineas, son of Eleazar, the
priest, to the land of Gilead, to Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe,
and with them they sent 10 men. So out of the large mass, the
assembled mass, there is this delegation that went. Verse 16 is where they have the
charge. It isn't, hey, how are you doing?
Think there could be a misunderstanding here. Some of us think this and
some of us think that. There is no hesitation. The whole assembly of the Lord
says, how could you? Now whenever somebody has a conversation
with me and they start with how could you, I know that I'm gonna
get chewed out here afterwards. How could you break faith with
the God of Israel like this? How could you turn away from
the Lord and build yourselves an altar in rebellion against
him? So I'll give this, there's no word salad political sort of
speak here. they get right to the point.
But there's a presumption of guilt. They weren't operating
on the United States and the greater history of law where
there's a presumption of innocence. They just started out presuming
they were guilty. And I think it's appropriate
at this point to just say, remind you, when you see something like
this, Don't just start off with presuming the worst. Proverbs
says that the first one to plead his case seems right until his
neighbor comes along and examines him, and we'll certainly see
that in this case. And of course, in John, we read John 7, 24,
stop judging by mere appearances and make a right judgment. Now,
don't get me wrong. After all they had gone through,
and we're going to read a little bit here about that or be reminded
of it again, they had gone through a lot together. And this didn't
look good. And to bring the bad for the
two and a half tribes in, part of the bad is we don't read anywhere
here where they said, I mean, they had plenty of opportunity,
oh, by the way, when we head back, we're not going to go build
an altar to become you know, idolatrous, we're going to do
it to remind you guys that we're part of you. They didn't have
that conversation ahead of time. So definitely there's some willingness
or reasonableness here in what they're doing. But I think it's
important to note before I get into the historical examples
that much harm can come from hasty conclusions and quick speech. We don't have to tolerate evil.
I'm not saying that. I'm not saying when somebody
actually does something evil, you just let it go. But if you
don't have all the facts, at least start there with a sincere
desire to understand the truth. They're building a legal case
here and this is laid out in such a way in the passage that
it's very much pointed in showing that this was a serious matter. And another thing that would
have been very significant to them is that the spokesperson
of the group was Phineas. Why is that significant? Well,
verse 17, was not the sin of Peor enough for us? Up to this
very day, we have not cleansed ourselves from that sin, even
though a plague fell on the community of the Lord. And if you were
to turn back to Numbers 25, you can later, or just make a note
for it. Numbers 25 is actually the passage
where Phinehas, is involved in dealing with this sin of Peor.
And he doesn't deal with it through negotiation. He actually takes
and drives a spear into an Israelite and kills him and the woman.
that stops the plague that began. But the sin of Peor was them
going after idolatry, another believer. And in that case, in
Numbers 25, 24,000 people died. So again, you can
forgive to a certain extent the fallibility and the humanness
of the tribe of Israel when you realize they're like, here we
go again. That was their thought. They
didn't stop to think, maybe there's a better explanation. They came
ready to deal with things. They didn't want to go through
a plague like this again. And in reality, there's a fear
of judgment here, a fear of God that was a real fear, especially
under the old covenant. Hadn't they been charged time
and time again not to follow after idols and they look, here's
this thing that looks like their brothers and sisters in the covenant
were going to build another altar in disobedience to God and they
were going to begin sacrifice there. I'm not saying fear is the only
driver, but I think that many cases when people look at that
passage, they miss it. They're worried about how God
is gonna deal with them. God's gonna get us for this.
And they had reason for that, but they didn't get the facts.
They were so scarred by what had happened to them in the past
that they are very quick to accuse and suppose before they get all
the facts in this matter. Once again, verse 18, he's gonna
restate the charge. Are you now turning away from
the Lord? If you rebel against the Lord
today, tomorrow, he will be angry with the whole community of Israel.
Again, not speculation, they had lived through it. But they
were presuming they were guilty before they had said anything.
And they were ready to deal with it as if they were. There is a note of grace in verse
19, though. Even in their assumption of guilt,
what's said is, if the land you possess is defiled, you can come
over to the Lord's land, where the Lord's tabernacle stands,
and share the land with us. So the grace here is, is literally
they are willing to prevent this sin from going forward, They're
willing to tell the two and a half tribes, we will give up of what
we have so you can live with us so you don't sin against God
and bring judgment on us. That's a very noble thing and
something for us to consider. But part of the thing is that
they still have this idea in their mind that those two and
a half tribes are somehow not quite all there, that they somehow
are living in disobedience, even though Joshua had said, Moses
gave you this land. And yes, it's not part of the
promised land, but grace covered their decision. God provided
a city of refuge over there. And of course, everybody in all
of Israel had to gather centrally to go to the temple. It wasn't
like, If they lived just across the river, they would have been
right there. They would have still had to
travel. But there's a gracious offer here, a gracious offer
that says, even if it costs me much, if I can help you to not
sin, I'm willing to give of what I have to stop that. Then they return to the charge,
but do not rebel against the Lord our God. end of verse 19,
or against us by building an altar for yourself other than
the altar of the Lord our God. And of course, under the law,
this was strictly forbidden. There was only one authorized
place for sacrifice, and we know in the history of Israel that
that was an ongoing issue with them building other places to
sacrifice to other gods. Well, he's not done, and he brings
another witness here, and this refers back to in the book of
Joshua, chapter 7. They had had a battle. After
the battle, they were strictly told in Joshua 7 that all the
silver and the gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred
to the Lord and must go into his treasury. Now, that wasn't
true in every battle and every place, but God gave a command,
gave a law that they were to strictly follow. And Achan, son
of Zerah, acted unfaithfully regarding those devoted things
and did not wrath come upon the whole community of Israel. He
was not the only one who died for his sin. So their concern,
their fear, their anxiety here is, hey, if you mess up, because
the covenant we have with God is conditional, we're gonna be
held accountable as well. And we're afraid that is how
God is gonna deal with us. Again, not entirely speculation
on their part based on what had happened. Well, there's a response. And this is a great response
here. I think there's a lot of good
things here. As I said earlier, really, this was a tempest in
a teapot if they would have said this before they left. So I'm not saying they're guiltless
here. But they start their response
by referencing God. Now, it's interesting to me,
and I don't know how much to draw from it, that in the Ten
Tribes response, there's a lot of judgment and God's gonna get
you for this, and in this case, they're saying God knows. They're
calling God as their witness, and really, that's what we're
gonna talk about now, the significance of that altar for them and for
us. But notice in verse 22, they
say, the mighty one, God, the Lord, the mighty one, God, the
Lord, he knows. And repetition in the Old Testament
is used for emphasis. And not only repetition and saying
it twice, but saying the same words for the name of God. I believe it's El Elohim Yahweh
that's said here twice. They're referencing the creation
name of God, the I am name of God, and the strong name of God. And they're bringing those all
together and they're saying, This God, the God we worship
with you, or we believe we worship with you, he knows. And then
he says, Reuben says, let Israel know. And they do this device
that I think is important for us and it's good to use not only
in spiritual context, I think it's a good humanistic piece
of reasoning. They agree, hey, if you're right,
if this has been in rebellion or disobedience to the Lord,
do not spare us this day. You willing to say that to brothers
and sisters in Christ? I warn you, don't say it there
or say it at work unless it's true. Do not spare us this day
if it's been in rebellion or disobedience to God. If we have
built our own altar to turn away from the Lord, verse 23, and
to offer burnt offerings and grain offerings or to sacrifice
fellowship offerings, may the Lord himself call us to account. And we know in the history of
Israel, God is able to open the ground and swallow up people. Essentially, he's like, why are
you bringing these armies? If we're guilty, God can deal
with this. They understand the charge and
say, if you were correct, we agree, under old covenant law,
we deserve to be punished. But they want to make it explicitly
clear that God alone is the judge in the matter. God alone. Would we be so gracious in our
conflicts? And essentially, this is a bit
of a theological, practical conflict here. But here's again a negative
side, not just that they didn't tell them in advance, but they
said, no, we did it for fear that someday your descendants
might say to ours, what do you have to do with the Lord God
of Israel? So the 10 tribes were afraid
of God's judgment, and the two and a half tribes were afraid
of disfellowship and loss of inheritance. And the word that's
used here in this first translation is the same word that's used
in Proverbs 12, 25, that says an anxious heart weighs a man
down. They had anxiety and fear about
losing their inheritance and losing fellowship with their
brothers and sisters. Verse 25, the Lord has made a
boundary between you and us. And they're saying this is what
they would say. You have no share. You have no
inheritance is what it means. That same word is used that way.
So your descendants may cause ours to stop fearing the Lord.
And again, I don't like to make a habit of criticizing translations,
but they kind of missed it here. If they would have said, we did
it for anxiety, then using fear here later would be okay, but
it's actually a different word. And the second word here is,
your descendants might cause ours to stop worshiping the Lord,
not being anxious about God. So be clear that these are two
different ideas here. That is why we said, verse 25,
let us get ready, built an altar, but not for offerings and sacrifices. On the contrary, it is to be
a witness, it's to be a sign between us and you, the generations
that follow, that we will worship the Lord at his sanctuary, not
there, but at his sanctuary, with our burnt offerings, sacrifice,
and fellowship offerings. They wanted to make it clear.
And your descendants won't be able in the future to say to
ours, you have no inheritance in the Lord. They wanted it as
a sign. And we know a lot of things in
scripture are used as signs. Circumcision is a sign. The Lord's
Suffering is a sign. Baptism is a sign. But they're not the reality.
And what they're saying here is, no, this is not a reality. This is a sign that we have fellowship
with you, and that in the future, when somebody says, how did this
altar get here? Oh, those tribes over there actually
were part of us, and they worship the same God, and that's why
they built this altar. If we ever say this, as he says,
look at, we will answer verse 27, I believe, lost my place,
28. We'll say, look at this replica
of the Lord's altar, which our fathers built, not for burnt
offerings, but as a witness. Far be it from us to rebel against
the Lord and to turn away from him today by building and altering
for burnt offerings, grain offerings, and sacrifice. So verses 30 through
33, Phineas hears it. They were pleased. Phineas says,
today we know the Lord is with us because you have not And I
can't help but laugh because there's no guilt on their part,
right? I mean, you have not acted unfaithfully towards the Lord
in this matter. Now you have rescued the Israelites from the
Lord's hands. Now, of course, in this action,
they hadn't literally done it. God was the one who put it in
their heart to build the altar and not have it be idolatrous. And God is the one who gave them
a gracious response to the accusations of their brothers. But they accepted that explanation. And then, of course, they had
to go back and let everybody else know, hey, no war, it's
all good. And the people were glad to hear
the report and praise God. Wish that happened more often
amongst fellow believers. Hey, I heard you were saying
something that was controversial. What did you mean when you said
that? Or somebody saw something and it looked suspicious. Well, we can pray that God will deliver
us from those sort of things, but we know the reality is in
the flesh, we're gonna deal with it. But they talked no more about
going to war against them to devastate the country. So this
was not gonna be a polite, we're gonna knock the altar down and
go home. They were planning on a complete and total war here. But they talked no more about
it. They went home. Everybody was
happy. And then verse 34, we read, And the Reubenites and Gadites
gave the altar this name, a witness between us that the Lord is God. And I knew I was going to be
up against the time, and I'm trying to do this in a timely
fashion, but I do want to spend a few moments here. So as we
know it now from our side of the cross, we know that Abraham
looked forward to Jesus' day. Jesus said before, Abraham was,
I am. And we know that the institution
of the old covenant system of sacrifices that could never take
away sins were also a witness to point us to Christ. So I find
it interesting here that we have a witness altar. And that's really
emphasized again in the passage and in the original. Everything
here is to point out that God is the focus. No matter if 10
tribes get it wrong and think their brothers and sisters are
idolatrous and two and a half tribes are wrong in that all
they want to do is forget about us and not include us as part
of Israel and as part of the people of God. The resolution
is found in the witness of God. The mighty one, God the Lord. He knows, he is the witness. And in fact, he is the answer
to our fears. Because Christ died sacrificed on behalf of his people
for our sins, that altar of witness should remind us we don't have
to fear punishment anymore. If we're covered by Christ, I think Joe said this in one
of the messages I listened to, and I may have got it from Tim
James, I don't know, our sin counts in this world, or rather,
Our sin matters in this world, if I have the figure right, but
it doesn't count ultimately. Our sin in this world will cause
us grief, and it may bring about fear. It may even bring about
some separation. But if you're in Christ, you
have a hope and a rest that is witnessed to by the sacrifice
of Christ. Hebrews 10 says the law is only
a shadow of the good things and not the reality. I think sometimes
we forget that even about what we do here and now. This is great,
this is God's authorized place to meet and God's authorized
way for us to do things, but even this is to point us to something
greater. We sing praises to God and we
listen to preaching from God and we worship God in anticipation
of something greater, as a witness, as a sign of something greater. Hebrews 10, 14 says that we who
trust, and I'm paraphrasing here, we who trust in Christ have an
altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right
to eat. At the time the book of Hebrews
was written, the author was speaking of actual sacrifices that were
going on and he was talking to those who wanted to turn back
to the law and turn back to the rituals and turn back to those
things. And he's like, why would you
do that? You have something so much greater in Christ. That perfect, complete sacrifice
of Christ for sinners makes us perfect
and holy forever, not by what we do, but in spite of all the
good we try to do. Are you afraid of God's judgment?
Don't take it to law and doings or bulls and goats. But know this, that Christ not
only died, he is your witness, your testimony, and your rescue,
because as Hebrews 7.25 says, he is able to save completely
those who come to God through him, because he always lives
to intercede for them. When you think I'm not good enough. Scripture says if you're in Christ,
he's good enough. And not only is he good enough,
he's interceding on your behalf. Are you anxious and worried about
losing your inheritance, your part with the people of God and
your fellowship? Psalm 94, 14 says that the Lord
will not reject his people. He will never forsake his inheritance. So even under the old covenant,
In the New Covenant, there is one people of God, and even though
the Old Covenant land promises and certain things were conditional,
salvation was the same. It was looking forward to I Am,
the Mighty One, the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ. Even though
they didn't know Him the way we can know Him, they were looking
forward to that sacrifice. And Psalmist reminds us that
he will never reject, he will never forsake. Even though outward
appearances can be disheartening, know that Christ is the great
altar that sanctifies every gift. And that's not me, that's Matthew
Henry. Ephesians chapter one, says that
in Christ, or in him, we have redemption through his blood,
the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace. And you also were included in
Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your
salvation, having believed you were marked in him with a seal,
the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our
inheritance until the redemption of those who are in God's possession
to the praise of his glory. I don't have to worry about my
inheritance. You don't have to worry about
your inheritance, ultimately, if you're in Christ. It's guaranteed. At the risk of repeating what
I said last week, but it's a good point, God said it, That settles
it. I believe it. Before Eric comes, in closing,
I think this was meant, I believe, as a prayer of Paul's in Acts
chapter 20. At the same time, he had warned
them that grievous wolves could come in. And I do worry. I worry about this church. I know God is greater than everything. But this is a dangerous time
for us, and we should be in much prayer. If you're listening to
this from afar or later, or you're not part of our assembly, we
covet your prayers. We need God to continue on. We were so blessed for so many
years, and we need God's hand to continue on. But in Acts 20,
32, in face of the fact that grievous wolves could And would
Paul prophesied come into the church? He says in verse 32,
and this is my closing prayer here, I commit you to God and
to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you
an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Pray that
God will make it so that he would continue this church for another
40, 50, however many years till the Lord
comes. Eric.