Joshua and Judges: Acting without thinking it through and believing the best of someone who does so; Jos 22.

Title: Joshua and Judges: Acting without thinking it through and believing the best of someone who does so; Jos 22.  

 

Announcements / opening prayer:

 

 

Due to the apostasy of Israel in coming generations the foreigners within their lands and bordering them will be allowed by God to become strong again and they will greatly oppress Israel.

 

On Sunday we documented several scriptures that assertively claimed that God alone saved and that it is God alone that gives us the victory in life. This comes through our faith. God reigns supreme over His universe, but each person must give God charge over his thoughts, decisions, and actions. This is the definition of will, which is not free to do anything, but is free to love and follow Christ or to leave that love and that path.

 

Don't lose your first love. If you do, you will find yourself again oppressed by old enemies.

 

REV 2:1 The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this:

 

REV 2:2 'I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot endure evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false;

 

REV 2:3 and you have perseverance and have endured for My name's sake, and have not grown weary.

 

REV 2:4 'But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.

 

REV 2:5 'Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you, and will remove your lampstand out of its place —  unless you repent.

 

It causes deep reflection to see that the Ephesian church had perseverance for His name's sake and had endured and not grown weary while in the mindset of having lost their first love. Did they forget why they were persevering? We see that they did forget from where they had fallen. Does He mean their fall from Eden or does He mean their fall from their first love? We would conclude that it is their fall from their first love that is in view. How could this have happened and yet they still endured for His name's sake?

 

A believer can fall in love with his own spiritual performance and divorce the spiritual life from the person of Christ. He can focus completely on his performance and forget that he is to love Christ first and foremost.

 

It's like a man who falls in love with a woman and that love raises within him a desire to be virtuous and honorable. Later on he begins to think that his love depends on his performance of virtue and honor when it is the other way around. He soon falls in love with performing over and above her. In essence, his love went from her to himself. We can do this with the Lord.

 

We can lose our love for Christ and fall in love with what we're doing for Christ and in essence our love goes from Him to ourselves.

 

Now, think it through. Don't be like a group we will see very soon who acted on good motivation but didn't take the time to think through what they were doing. Does the above possibility lead to the conclusion that I should do nothing for the sake of Christ? That conclusion is minus thought.

 

We do all for His sake, but we realize that He is the only reason that we do so.

 

MAT 10:39

"He who has found his life shall lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake shall find it.

 

HEB 12:1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

 

HEB 12:2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

 

HEB 12:3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.

 

It is a clear indication that your heart, soul, and mind have taken their eyes off of Jesus when old enemies begin to first aggravate the borders of your soul. Here the spiritual life loses its joy.

 

Sure, you may endure like Ephesus, but without love it has lost its savor, its joy, its romance. If there is not repentance (change of mind, or refocus of the eyes of the mind) the nitpicking enemy will become the invading enemy of the soul, in which condition, the believer may go away from the plan of God completely. As we will see with Israel during the times of the judges, the believer must return to his simple and uninfected fellowship with the Lord.

 

Now, after seven years, the armies of the two and a half tribes settled east of the Jordan are allowed to return home. They have fulfilled all that Moses had commanded.

 

NUM 32:20 So Moses said to them, "If you will do this, if you will arm yourselves before the Lord for the war,

 

NUM 32:21 and all of you armed men cross over the Jordan before the Lord until He has driven His enemies out from before Him,

 

NUM 32:22 and the land is subdued before the Lord, then afterward you shall return and be free of obligation toward the Lord and toward Israel, and this land shall be yours for a possession before the Lord.

 

It is likely that they were sent home directly after the conquest of the land. They already had settled their lands over the Jordan and there was no reason for them to remain around Shiloh while the other tribes procrastinated. The historian rightly records this after the record of the distribution in the west so as not to break the thread of the narrative before any of the worthy events to come would be recorded.  

 

JOS 22:1 Then Joshua summoned the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh,

 

JOS 22:2 and said to them, "You have kept all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, and have listened to my voice in all that I commanded you.

 

JOS 22:3 You have not forsaken your brothers these many days to this day, but have kept the charge of the commandment of the Lord your God.

 

JOS 22:4 And now the Lord your God has given rest to your brothers, as He spoke to them; therefore turn now and go to your tents, to the land of your possession, which Moses the servant of the Lord gave you beyond the Jordan.

 

JOS 22:5 Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God and walk in all His ways and keep His commandments and hold fast to Him and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul."

 

Joshua fully understands the changeableness of human nature and so reminds them that they observe the commandment of the Lord on both sides of the Jordan.

 

JOS 22:6 So Joshua blessed them and sent them away, and they went to their tents.

 

JOS 22:7 Now to the one half-tribe of Manasseh Moses had given a possession in Bashan, but to the other half Joshua gave a possession among their brothers westward beyond the Jordan. So when Joshua sent them away to their tents, he blessed them,

 

JOS 22:8 and said to them, "Return to your tents with great riches and with very much livestock, with silver, gold, bronze, iron, and with very many clothes; divide the spoil of your enemies with your brothers."

 

JOS 22:9 And the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh returned home and departed from the sons of Israel at Shiloh which is in the land of Canaan, to go to the land of Gilead [often used as a general name for the whole of the east of Israel], to the land of their possession which they had possessed, according to the command of the Lord through Moses.

 

The Jordan river is a natural border. The 2½ tribes decide to build a large altar at the Jordan as a reminder of their unity to their brothers on the west side.

 

JOS 22:10 And when they came to the region of the Jordan which is in the land of Canaan, the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh built an altar there by the Jordan, a large altar in appearance.

 

It is somewhat significant that they built the altar on the western side of the Jordan, "in the land of Canaan," and not on their side. This altar was never meant to be a place of sacrifice as a second place of worship along with the tabernacle.

 

This wasn't a bad thing to do, but it was not thought through. They should have first gone to the high priest to ask permission from God as well as to inform their brethren of this plan.

 

When Israel in the west hears of this they assemble for war against the east, thinking that the altar had been constructed for the purpose of sacrifice. Since such a location for an altar was not commanded by God and to sacrifice upon it would be a violation of the law, their assemblage for war was not the overreaction that it initially appears to be.

 

JOS 22:11 And the sons of Israel heard it said, "Behold, the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh have built an altar at the frontier of the land of Canaan, in the region of the Jordan, on the side belonging to the sons of Israel."

 

JOS 22:12 And when the sons of Israel heard of it, the whole congregation of the sons of Israel gathered themselves at Shiloh, to go up against them in war.

 

LEV 17:8-9 "Then you shall say to them, 'Any man from the house of Israel, or from the aliens who sojourn among them, who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice, and does not bring it to the doorway of the tent of meeting to offer it to the Lord, that man also shall be cut off from his people."

 

DEU 12:11

it shall come about that the place in which the Lord your God shall choose for His name to dwell, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution of your hand, and all your choice votive offerings which you will vow to the Lord.

 

Were the other tribes attempting to create a second altar or a second tabernacle? Did they imagine it would be too much to cross the Jordan and travel to Shiloh in order to offer sacrifices to God at the proper times?

 

God had instructed that if any of the cities of Israel had decided to sacrifice to false gods then the city was to be put under the ban and all the people and their materials were to be destroyed. So, arraying for battle against what seemed to be a violation of the one sacred altar could be seen as commendable zeal for the Lord. Yet, they immediately jumped to the conclusion that the altar was for sinful purposes. They will send a delegation to find out before they go to war, which is also commendable and according to the Law, but it would have been better for them to first state that they did not know why the other tribes set up and altar and then inquire.