We're going to be reading a passage
from Joshua chapter 22. I really felt I had to read this
whole passage and then I thought, no, I can't do that. It's too
long. And we are supposed to be speaking
just to the younger people. So I've broken into it. the chapter
22 at verse 21. And we're going to read from
verse 21 to verse 29 in a few moments. But before we do that,
let me just, by way of introduction, give a brief overview of where
we are today and then we will do our reading hopefully with
a degree of context to undergird that. The main subjects that we have
been considering over the past few weeks is the entrance of
Joshua, and the children of Israel into the land of Canaan and the
battles that have been fought and the victories that have been
won as the Lord assisted, helped and allowed the children of Israel
to possess the land. First the southern part and then
the northern part of the land of Israel. And we pretty much
came up to, I think, chapter 10 and 11 and The narrative between chapters
12 to 21, the content of that passage, is largely a list of
the kings that were slain and the cities that were taken in
battle. and also a record of the land
that was not fully occupied by the children of Israel. And finally,
in that portion from, as I say, chapter 12 through to 21, a record
of the division of the land of Canaan to the tribes of Israel
and what was given to each tribe, both in its region, its area,
and in its cities. And what we discover is that
the divisions that were made were made by lot or by casting
lots. Today we would say throwing dice. That's the implication. It's
a random form of allocation made by chance. But actually, when
we speak about casting lots in scripture, it's not simply rolling
a dice and seeing what comes up. The idea, the concept of
casting lots in the scripture is that the division or the outcome
is the choice of the Lord. As the lot fell, so the hand
of God was discerned. And chapter 14 tells us that
there were nine and a half tribes that had inheritance in the land
of Canaan proper, that is the land of Canaan westward of the
River Jordan, and there were two and a half tribes that took
possession of the land on the east side of the River Jordan. and these two and a half tribes,
it was the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe Manasseh,
these were given that land by Moses before his death and you
will remember perhaps with me that Joshua had instructed them
to cross over the Jordan with the rest of their brethren, the
rest of the tribes, and to lead the rest of the tribes into battle
before they then went back and possessed the land eastward of
Jordan. So this is the division that
we have, the nine and a half tribes on one side of the Jordan
in the land of Canaan proper, now given their various regions
by allocation of the casting of lots and the two and a half
tribes over on the east side of the River Jordan. And also
we're told that the Levites, whose role it was to serve in
a religious context for all the tribes, they were to assist the
people wherever they were in their worship of God, and so
there was no land allocated to the Levites. Rather, what they
were given was 48 cities, named cities, scattered throughout
the land of Canaan, and this is where they were to live amongst
the tribes. They were given fields, they
were given pasture land for their cattle, but they were to live
in these 48 cities. And certain of those cities,
six in total, were designated as cities of refuge and we've
mentioned those in the past. At the end of chapter 21 then,
Joshua tells us that the Lord fulfilled all the promises that
he had given to the children of Israel and all the promises
that he had made to the fathers. Do you remember who the fathers
were? Who were the fathers? When we talk about the promises
that had been made to the fathers, who is it we're speaking about?
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob primarily. That would be who we would think
about as being the father. So God fulfilled all the promises,
all the covenant promises that he had given to Abraham and Isaac
and Jacob and to the children of Israel. And then in chapter
22, which is where we're going to take our reading from, Joshua
calls the two and a half tribes that were to go back across the
Jordan and dwell in that land, in the land of Goshen, he calls
them Gilead, and he says this is Reuben and Gad and Manasseh. And they had the east, word side
of Jordan. And he dismisses them after all
the battles had been fought to return to their own land. And
this is what they did. And then we read an interesting
incident. We read in chapter 22, an interesting
passage about an altar that was made at this time by these two
and a half tribes. So that when Reuben and Gad and
Manasseh reached the river Jordan, and it was probably close to
where the ruin of Jericho was, where the whole nation had crossed
the Jordan as they entered into the land, they stopped. The Reubenites,
the Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh stopped and they
built an altar. In fact, it was a great altar
that could be seen a long way off. And that act of building
the altar caused a degree of consternation and anxiety amongst
the other nine and a half tribes. When the other tribes heard of
it, when the other tribes saw it, there was concern about what
was happening. so much so that the nine and
a half tribes gathered at Shiloh which is the place where the
tabernacle had been put and where the true altar of sacrifice was
located and they gathered there to prepare for war suspecting
that this new construction by the Reubenites, the Gadanites
and the tribe of Manasseh was a sign of impending idolatry. Almost as soon as the wars were
over between the children of Israel and the Canaanites, the
children of Israel were preparing to go to war with one another. And this is where we break in
to this passage because What we find is that the Children
of Israel prepare for war, ready to fight with the tribes on the
east side of the Jordan. But before they do so, there
is a meeting takes place. And a man called Phineas and
some of the leaders of the Children of Israel go to speak to the
Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe Masanna. I've forgotten how to pronounce
that. I've said it so many times. The half-tribe. Anyway. Manasseh. Manasseh. Verse 21. Then the children of Reuben and
the children of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh answered and said
unto the heads of the thousands of Israel, that is, Phinehas
and these heads who came with him, The Lord God of gods, the
Lord God of gods, he knoweth and Israel he shall know, if
it be in rebellion or if in transgression against the Lord, save us not
this day, that we have built as an altar to turn from following
the Lord. or if to offer their own burnt
offering or meat offering, or if to offer peace offerings their
own, let the Lord himself require it. And if we have not rather
done it for fear of this thing, saying, In time to come your
children might speak unto our children, saying, What have ye
to do with the Lord God of Israel? For the Lord hath made Jordan
a border between us and you. Ye children of Reuben and children
of Gad, ye have no part in the Lord. So shall your children
make our children cease from fearing the Lord. Therefore we
said, let us now prepare to build us an altar, not for burnt offering,
nor for sacrifice. but that it may be a witness
between us and you, and our generations after us, that we might do the
service of the Lord before him with our burnt offerings, and
with our sacrifices, and with our peace offerings, that your
children may not say to our children in time to come, ye have no part
in the Lord. Therefore said we, that it shall
be, when they should so say to us, or to our generations in
time to come, that we may say again, Behold the pattern of
the altar of the Lord, which our fathers made, not for burnt
offerings, nor for sacrifices, but it is a witness between us
and you. God forbid that we should rebel
against the Lord and turn this day from following the Lord to
build an altar for burnt offerings, for meat offerings or for sacrifices
beside the altar of the Lord our God that is before his tabernacle
that is in Shiloh. Amen. May God bless this reading
to us. I think this is such an interesting
little passage and I think that were it not that we were moving
quickly through these passages, we could spend a lot of time
just thinking about what is going on here. An interesting thing
has happened. First of all, we see that it
is good that the people didn't fight, but that they talked together
and found out what was going on. The nine and a half tribes
came and expressed their concern that idolatry was being reintroduced
and their fears that the whole nation would suffer as a result. They asked the two and a half
tribes to explain themselves, to explain why they were doing
what they did, why they were constructing this altar that
looked like the altar in Shiloh. And the Reubenites and the Gadites
and the half-tribe of Manasseh, they said, This altar is not
for sacrifice but it is a witness to the generations yet to come
that although our tribes are divided by the River Jordan,
although the nine and a half are on one side and the two and
a half are on the other, we are still one nation. It is a natural
barrier. It is a barrier between us but
we are still one people and we still worship the one God. Reubenites and the Gadites were
saying effectively that this was to be a testimony that they
were one people worshipping one God. It was to be an altar of
witness to remind everyone that the place of worship was shallow
and no barrier should be raised, whether natural or artificial,
to stop the two tribes from travelling to Shiloh to worship. We could
imagine what might happen. Here were a whole load of people
coming across Jordan and asking to pass through the countryside
of another tribe. Were that people going to be
anxious about having so many people from another land entering
their area, their possessions? But what we see is that rather
than being a cause of sin, the altar was an encouragement to
true worship. And the Reubenites and the Gadites
and the half-tribe of Manasseh desired to continue to worship
the Lord with their brethren. And that's what this altar signified. I want to draw a couple of lessons
for us today from this little incident, which I think really
is very interesting indeed. The first thing we can draw from
it is the admirable zeal of the nine and a half tribes for the
things of God. It was good to see how the nine
and a half tribes were concerned for the true worship of God. Had we read a few more verses
from this chapter, we'd see that there was real concern that the
tribes east of Jordan might worship false gods and bow down before
a sinful altar, and that that would incur God's anger and cost
lives. We would have read that even
Achan's sin at Ai is mentioned in the context of this to show
how the sin of one affected many. And it is good that we see this
anxiety on the part of the nine and a half tribes. self-awareness
and a sensitivity for the things that are done in worship is good. Worshipping God is not only a
personal matter, but it is a congregational and it is a church-based exercise. We come together to worship the
Lord. That doesn't mean we can't pray
separately, we can't pray personally, we can't read our Bible independently,
but when we come together, the Lord has established a union
amongst his people that we might worship him as churches and congregations. And the Lord calls for worship
in spirit and in truth, which includes an honest and humble
attitude of our sinful state before the Lord and our need
of grace. We learn here that the children
of Israel appreciated the importance of worship. They learned this
from the Lord himself. The Lord is jealous for purity
in worship. That is, coming before God and
worshipping in faith, in spirit, and in truth. We're not talking
about robes, we're not talking about altars, we're not talking
about animal sacrifices. We're talking about faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ and his sacrifice. And as we come together
to worship, as we worship in faith, in spirit and in truth,
so the Lord is pleased to receive our worship. So we can tell that
the nine and a half tribes were admirably concerned about true
worship. Here's another lesson that we
can take. We also realise that the nine and a half tribes showed
wisdom in desiring to speak and reason with the men of Ruben,
Gad and Manasseh. Before they sent their armies,
they sent a delegation to talk, to negotiate, to reason together. Before they fell out and started
fighting, they talked. And it's always good that before
going to war, the two groups sit down and explain what is
happening. You know, sometimes in churches,
people fall out and trouble occurs. It shouldn't happen. But it does
happen because we are all sinful people and we all think that
we know best. But here, the children of Israel
give us a good example. It's a good practice to try to
understand the reasons why things happen as they do. Why have the
Reubenites and the Gadites built this altar? I know what the nine
and a half tribes thought that they'd built the altar for, but
was that really the case? This incident had real potential
for misunderstanding, and as a result of that misunderstanding,
for serious, destructive outcomes. It would have been a civil war
amongst the children of Israel, just at the very time when they
had taken possession of the land of Canaan. But cool heads prevailed
and death was prevented. And here's another lesson for
us. The thinking of the two and a half tribes was also admirable. And it really is quite an insightful
and perceptive attitude that these men took. The altar that
they built was not to be a place of worship, but a memorial. It was a witness to encourage
and maintain the true and proper worship of God. This is what
we read when Phineas went and asked the question of the Reubenites
and Gadites. The East of Jordan tribes had
a good and sincere explanation for their actions. The altar
was not for sacrifice, but to remind future generations of
the union that existed between the tribes on either side of
Jordan and the obligation upon each to exercise wisdom and allow
opportunity for access, for travel to and from Shiloh for worshipping
God. Rather than a tool for false
worship, the altar was a pointer and a reminder of the need for
true worship. When the two-and-a-half tribes
explained this to the rest of their brother tribes, the nine-and-a-half
tribes accepted that the act of building the altar was reasonable
and agreeable and useful. In the years to come, fear and
distrust between the tribes and the nations could well arise. But this memorial altar would
testify to the common history that the peoples shared and the
common faith that was theirs to worship the Lord together. And finally, I just want to draw
your attention to another little application. I think if we take
a couple of these thoughts and combine them, then it shows us
something else. The zeal of the nine and a half
tribes for the altar at Shiloh, and the concern of the two and
a half tribes for ongoing access to Shiloh. shows us that Israel
understood the significance of that single and unique altar
that had been set up by God through Moses' guidance while the tabernacle
was being established in the wilderness. More importantly,
they realised that the sacrifices that were made on that particular
altar pointed to something more, something greater than just a
ritual and a ceremony. They could have their rituals
anywhere, they could conduct their ceremonies anywhere, but
they knew that this was the place that the Lord had established,
this was the way that the Lord Lord had directed, and it was
a picture of every sinner's way to God. It pointed to the one
unique sacrifice, not made by Eleazar, not made
by Aaron or the sons of the priests, but made by the great high priest,
the Lord Jesus Christ. This unique sacrifice was made
by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross and the altar at Shiloh
pointed to the cross and the children of Israel understood
that. Hundreds of years before Christ came, the believing Jews
looked forward in anticipation and faith to the sacrifice provided
by God himself. and the grace and the mercy that
it proclaimed. These Old Testament people saw
in the types and shadows of the law and the sacrifices what the
Messiah would accomplish. And we, you and me, we are witnesses
of the fulfilment of what the types and shadows looked forward
to. How blessed we are to be able
to look back on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and see
it as the means by which our sins are forgiven and our salvation
has been won. The Reubenites, the Gadites,
the half-tribe of Manasseh, they were anxious about their children
and their children's children knowing the true Gospel. That's
just like us. We are anxious as well that our
children and our children's children and the generations following
will know the true Gospel. And I think it's admirable that
these people thought this way. I hope we are always as zealous
for the true worship and spiritual worship of God through the Lord
Jesus Christ, through the blood of our Saviour as we come before
God. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us today.