Dennis Tuuri

Psalm 22. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

We could say that in this three-fold order that I’ve mentioned in terms of the worship service of the church, we kneel—maybe not physically at this location, but when we come into that first phase—confessing our sins, and then we stand for the hearing of the word, and then we sit to be fed by our Father in the Lord’s Supper.

So here now the command word of our Savior, Joshua 22:

Then Joshua called the Reubenites, the Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh and said to them, “You have kept all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you and have obeyed my voice and all that I commanded you. You have not left your brethren these many days up to this day but have kept the charge of the commandments the Lord your God. And now the Lord your God has given rest to your brethren as he promised them.

Now therefore return and go to your tents and to the land of your possession, which Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave you on the other side of the Jordan. But take careful heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to keep his commandments, to hold fast to him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

So Joshua blessed them and sent them away and they went to their tents. Now to half the tribe of Manasseh, Moses had given as possession in Bashan. But to the other half of it, Joshua gave a possession among their brethren on this side of the Jordan westward. And indeed, when Joshua sent them away to their tents, he blessed them and spoke to them, saying, “Return with much riches to your tents, with very much livestock, with silver, with gold, with bronze, with iron, with very much clothing. Divide the spoil of your enemies with your brethren.”

So the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh, returned and departed from the children of Israel at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan, to go to the country of Gilead, to the land of their possession, which they had obtained according to the word of the Lord by the hand of Moses. And when they came to the region of the Jordan, which is in the land of Canaan, the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh built an altar there by the Jordan—a great impressive altar.

Now the children of Israel heard someone say, “Behold, the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh, they built an altar on the frontier of the land of Canaan in the region of the Jordan on the children of Israel’s side.” And when the children of Israel heard of it, the whole congregation of the children of Israel gathered together at Shiloh to go to war against them.

Then the children of Israel sent Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the priest, to the children of Reuben, to the children of Gad, to half the tribe of Manasseh, into the land of Gilead. And with him ten rulers, one ruler or prince each from the chief house of every tribe of Israel. And each one was the head of the house of his father among the divisions of Israel. Then they came to the children of Reuben, to the children of Gad, to half the tribe of Manasseh, to the land of Gilead, and they spoke with them, saying, “Thus says the whole congregation of the Lord:

What treachery is this that you have committed against the God of Israel to turn away this day from following the Lord in that you have built for yourselves an altar that you might rebel this day against the Lord? Is the iniquity of Peor not enough for us from which we are not cleansed unto this day? Although there was a plague in the congregation of the Lord, but that you must turn away this day from following the Lord?

Then it shall be, if you rebel today against the Lord, that tomorrow he will be angry with the whole congregation of Israel. Nevertheless, if the land of your possession is unclean, then cross over to the land of the possession of the Lord, where the Lord’s tabernacle stands, and take possession among us. But do not rebel against the Lord, nor rebel against us by building yourselves an altar besides the altar of the Lord our God.

Did not Achan the son of Zerah commit a trespass in these things, and wrath fell on all the congregation of Israel? And that man did not perish alone in his iniquity.”

Then the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh answered and said to the heads of the divisions of Israel, “The Lord God of gods, the Lord God of gods, he knows, and let Israel itself know. If it is in rebellion or if in treachery against the Lord, do not save us this day.

If we have built ourselves an altar to turn from following the Lord, or to offer on it burnt offerings or grain offerings, or if to offer peace offerings on it, let the Lord himself require an account. But in fact, we have done it for a reason, saying, ‘In time to come, your descendants may speak to our descendants, saying, “What have you to do with the Lord God of Israel? For the Lord has made the Jordan a border between you and us, you children of Reuben and children of Gad. You have no part in the Lord.”

So your descendants would make our descendants cease fearing the Lord. Therefore, we said, “Let us now prepare to build ourselves an altar, not for burnt offering, nor for sacrifice, but that it may be a witness between you and us in our generations after us, that we may perform the service of the Lord before him with our burnt offerings, with our sacrifices, and with our peace offerings, that your descendants may not say to our descendants in time to come, ‘You have no part in the Lord.’”

Therefore, we said that it will be when they say this to us or to our generations in time to come that we may say, ‘Here is the replica of the altar of the Lord which our fathers made though not for burnt offering nor for sacrifices but it is a witness between you and us. Far be it from us that we should rebel against the Lord and turn from following the Lord this day to build an altar for burnt offerings from grain offerings or for sacrifices besides the altar of the Lord our God which is before his tabernacle.’”

Now when Phineas the priest and the rulers of the congregation, the heads of the divisions of Israel who were with them heard the words the children of Reuben, the children of Gad and the children of Manasseh spoke, it pleased them. Then Phineas the son of Eleazar the priest said to the children of Reuben, the children of Gad and the children of Manasseh, “This day we perceive that the Lord is among us because you have not committed this treachery against the Lord. Now you have delivered the children of Israel out of the hand of the Lord.”

And Phineas the son of Eleazar the priest and the rulers returned from the children of Reuben and the children of Gad from the land of Gilead to the land of Canaan to the children of Israel and brought back word to them. So the thing pleased the children of Israel and the children of Israel blessed God. They spoke no more of going against them in battle to destroy the land where the children of Reuben and Gad dwelt.

The children of Reuben and the children of Gad called the altar witness. “For it is a witness between us that the Lord is God.”

Let’s pray.

Father, we would not come to this text thinking to understand it on the basis of our intellect alone. We thank you, Lord God, for the indwelling Spirit. We thank you that he promises to take the things of your word, write them upon our heart, to teach us things of Jesus, and to transform us. We thank you that your word is sharp and powerful and cuts us apart, but that it also heals us and makes us into stronger men and women. May you accomplish that this day in our worship. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

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We have a wonderful story here of our classical period. I suppose the Old Testament is our classics. We have a picture here of our forefathers. These are real men who are brothers in arms, many years as they routed the Canaanites out of the land—not totally, but to a very large extent—brothers in arms, and now they’re brothers in peace. These are real men who had gone through real battles.

The setting for Joshua 22 is that the war of conquest of the promised land is now complete, or as complete as it’s going to be. There were two and a half tribes that had been given land on the other side of Jordan by Moses. Remember there was battle over there too. We’ll get to that as we read next week in Psalm 108 in the responsive reading. Battle before they crossed into the promised land. And so these tribes were assigned their portion there, but they had to help their brothers conquer the rest of the land before they could go take possession of their land which was already conquered, okay?

So they went over with their brothers and they all did the conquest of Canaan, and the tribes are dispersed. The two and a half tribes, once the war is over, they’re bivouacked and sent back out—mustered out rather, mustered out of the army because they’re going back home. The war is over and they’ve done a good job. Now I know that was not perfect. It remains a picture both of the conquest of the world through the preaching of Christ, the greater Joshua. It also remains a picture of the sin of men. But by and large, they’ve done a wonderful job.

These were real men. They’d gone through real battles, used real swords and spears, killed real people. Many of them were killed as well. Real men. They were men who in the context of this lesson were exceedingly devoted to the glory of God. There’s no—you know, there’s that song, “There aren’t any good guys. There are no bad guys. There’s only you and me and we just disagree.” Of course, that’s not true. There are good guys and bad guys. There aren’t bad guys in this account. I mean, they’re sinful men, but they’re redeemed men. These are all good guys.

And we’re going to talk about the four types of speech that real men use. And I don’t think we see a bad example here for us. I think we see a positive example all the way around in everything that’s done in this chapter. I think we have an appendix here to the book of Joshua to remind us of what it’s like when reformation truly takes effect and men’s lives are transformed and they become real men, full men once more.

What are they like with each other? What should it look like? What’s the model? And the model is not exactly consonant with the model of Christian men today. You know the famous Dennis Peacock line—men who want to be nicer than Jesus. We’ve talked about that in our Psalms class on imprecation a couple of weeks ago in the anti-abortion Day of the Lord services. Probably many preachers today would find much at fault with this text from Joshua 22, but I don’t think they read it in the text. It’s imposing a view of manhood that is not biblical onto the text.

Now, I decided to do this in January, and in the providence of God it’s a nice transition between last week’s sermon on the providence of God and next week. I’m so grateful to Chris W. for filling in last week. And part of what he talked about was the kind of proper speech that is given to us in proper ways of being rather in First Peter. And he told us that several of the positive things we’re supposed to do is to be of one mind, to have compassion on one another, to love as brethren. Well, I think what we have here is an example of that—of the one-mindedness of these people, which we’ll get to at the end of the sermon. They’re treating each other compassionately. May not seem like it according to today’s standards, but it is compassionate. We’ll see that. And they’re loving each other as brothers. This is how brothers really do love one another. And it involves not just commending one another but exhorting each other and confronting each other when necessary. And finally reconciling with one another.

Those are the four types of speech we’re going to be looking at. One more time, you can write them down: commendation, words of commendation, words of exhortation, words of confrontation, and then words of reconciliation or consilitation. And these men do that. And this is how real men work in the context of a culture that is totally given over to the holiness of God.

Super Bowls on today, you know. These guys, the Super Bowl is kind of like mock warfare. These guys didn’t have mock warfare. They were in the real deal for the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ also—Yahweh, Joshua—and they knew they were following the greater Joshua as well. We see in this text men sharp, men encouraging each other to biblical manhood, men who hear from each other words of potential criticism. One of the worst problems we have today in American Christian culture is the inability of men to receive counsel from one another, to receive exhortation, let alone to hear words of confrontation.

And I hope that as we enter into this new year in preparation for the next millennium, that this is the sort of—and we can become little by little. Worship is transformational. Worship hurts because we sin. And what I’m going to give you today is not a list of dos and don’ts with the idea you’re supposed to follow these things. Ultimately, what I’m going to do here is portray this picture of what God does from Joshua 22 to show us that we fall short. He’s going to hack at us. It’s going to hurt a little bit, probably at least for some of us, hopefully most of us. But then at the end of the time, he’s going to sit us down at the Lord’s table and say, “I’m healing you up here. I’ve equipped you. I’ve called you and I’m transforming your life.” And you’re going to go out of today, if the Spirit moves in the way he does, healed.

And we’re going to go out a little bit more like these men that we read about in Joshua 22. And we’re going to need that.

You know, we’re setting some goals in this church. We’re looking at what we’re to do as we approach the new millennium. We’re looking at our stewardship responsibilities to the funds of the church that God has so graciously poured out on it. We’re looking at our stewardship responsibilities in terms of the potential use of a building at virtually no cost. And it’s driving, at least me—I think it’s driving the other officers of the church—to think in terms of the future and to think what we have to do as a church. What things should we accomplish in our worship service? What things should we accomplish with our missions perspective? What things should we accomplish with the youth?

I said this is a transition between Chris’s sermon and my sermon next week. Next week we’re going to talk about Abraham going and getting a wife for Isaac. But Abraham was doing a lot more than that. You see, Abraham was thinking of covenantal succession before he dies. He’s got to move that covenant seed on. You see, and these men here—we get to the end of the chapter—what we find out is that the presenting incident that causes the problem is again real godly men thinking generationally in terms of their children and their children’s children and making plans to try to achieve a particular goal for them.

And that’s what we want to do next week. I want to lay out some goals for our children and as a result goals upon the parents. We got to think about the next generation. We want to think in terms of covenantal succession. And this task is accomplished primarily through speech. The word, speech, is what changes the world. And so we want to look at the speech of these godly men and to see how it changed their world and apply it to our life as well.

We’re having these men’s meetings. That’s exciting to me. Very exciting. It was a good meeting Friday night and we’re going to have some wonderful things, I think, discussed—encouraging and exhorting one another. And in those men’s meetings, we want to be able to speak like these real men spoke. We want to see these guys as an example to us. So we’re going to use this as a jumping off place really, not just to talk today, but to talk into the rest of this year.

You know, a church is an organism. It’s a body. And this church started in the early ’80s and we hit kind of a ramp up very fast, hit kind of a peak as the ’90s was just beginning. Had a reconstruction conference here and had 450 people on a Friday evening come out and hear R.J. Rushdoony and some other men speak. And then the early and the mid part of the ’90s was testing and some trials for this church. And now as we reach the end of the ’90s, we’ve kind of recovered and God has built us up again.

He’s put together a very unique, I think, an interesting group of men and women in this congregation with particular giftings. I praise God that we’re not homogeneous. I mean, in our outward appearances in this church, we’ve got people from different income levels. We got people with different kinds of interests and habits. We got people in different layers or types of vocational calling. We’ve got lots of different kind of folk here.

And it’s not easy to have a group like this that is diverse as it is to come together and move together as a unit. The only way to do that is to do so according to the word of God, to find our true commonality there and find delight in the diversity of expression that we find in lifestyles and different callings in our church. But God has equipped us, given us a group of men, I think, that is somewhat unique. And I know that it’s my heart and I’m sure it’s the heart of the other officers to think through how we function together as a body and to try to help and encourage each of you to find your particular niche and how this body manifests the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we’ll do so in these various goals and endeavors we’re going to set our hand to as we move into the next millennium.

So it’s exciting times and it’s times that’ll require us to employ godly speech. And that’s what we have before us here in the context of Joshua 22—an example, I think, of how real men speak. There’s no blame that should be assessed to these parties, or rather all are to be praised, okay?

Let’s go through quickly then these four elements of proper speech. First of all, real men employ speech of commendation.

Now, Josh does this as he’s commending these tribes and mustering them out. Here’s what he tells them in verse 2. He says to them, “You have kept all that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you and have obeyed my voice and all that I commanded you. You’ve not left your brethren these many days up to this day, but have kept the charge of the commandment of the Lord your God. And now the Lord your God has given you rest as he promised you.” Then go forward to your tents.

See, Joshua—this section of men speaking—begins with commendation, and it’s important, I think, that we recognize—and we’ll be talking about this more in the communion service over the next month—but everybody wants certain things in life, and one thing that everybody wants is they want to be special. They want to have weight or consideration given to them. They don’t want to be thought of as an idiot or you know a turkey or not being important. They want themselves to have glory or weight. That’s proper. We’re made in the image of God. It’s proper to desire it. The problem is that we try to attain it in an improper way. We try to attain it on our own as opposed to through the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ. But it’s a proper goal.

And in the context of the church of Jesus Christ, it is a proper thing. And in fact, it would be very improper to fail to give glory to one another, to give weight or consideration. So commendation is the first of these types of speech that real men engage themselves in. And when you do that in a proper biblical way, you minister grace to the heart of that word, you affirm the glory that he has, not in his Adamic state, but in his redeemed state in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so when men get around a living room—over at Dan’s place to talk—we listen to each other. We hear each other out. We don’t interrupt each other. We give each other glory and weight, and then we give each other commendations. You know, commendations should be part of our everyday vocabulary in the context of our families and the context of this church and the broader Christian community. Don’t you feel good when you get commended? We got a little thing in the mail from Ocean Spray—Dick and Dorothy Carmen, their homeschool support umbrella thing—and had a little certificate in there made out to Dennis and Christine Tuuri for their work with homeschoolers in the Canby area. I think they mailed them to all these different support group leaders. They mailed a ton of them out. But still, you feel kind of good. You got a little certificate with your name on there, you know. That’s nice commendation.

We should commend each other. And we should say John S., thank you very much for bringing that information to us Friday night. George—George isn’t here today, but George should be commended for the work he put into researching and then bringing the report. Dan should be commended for bringing together a men’s [meeting] and being willing to organize the thing and put it together. Patty should be commended for having all those men at her house.

The taping here—I very much listened to Chris W.’s tape this last week and I thought, boy, it certainly sounds good. Praise God for whoever did the taping last week. Praise God, you know, for these men that set up the sound system and the work they’ve done over the years—Jeff Mallister and Brian Cisco and Tom Dolan. We got to commend each other.

The Funases with working with the meal preparation, the Meyers work with them. I know Debbie does a lot of cooking for the special meals, for instance. There’s a lot of planning and putting things into that. You know, we should commend one another more often in this church. Real men commend each other for the jobs they do, the way Joshua commended the Trans-Jordanian tribes—the tribes that would live on the other side of the Jordan.

We should commend the Kits Millers for mailing out those tapes. Couldn’t have got the tape no matter how well it was recorded. The Kids Mill didn’t mail us a copy this last week. Very faithful work that goes on. I know there’s tons of things that are done here by people all the time, and we should commend each other for that. We want to develop that sense of commendation, giving glory.

Another thing I want us to know here just in passing is that this commendation is so strongly worded to these godly men that I think it should be an encouragement to us that this is the kind of man that God is making us into. In other words, he says, “You did everything God commanded you to do. You do everything I commanded you to do.” We read that text and we think we’re not deserving of commendation because we don’t do everything we’re supposed to do. We fall short, and we might fall short a ton. But recognize that victory is possible. Living a lifestyle in essential conformity to the law of God is possible and in fact should be a goal that all of us attain to as we submit ourselves to the searching word of God and to the Spirit of God who cuts us apart and puts us back together.

Victory is possible. Men do change. You are changing. You are maturing into the godly Christian men that are described for us in Joshua 22.

Now, commendation is the first level. But there’s one other thing I’m going to just mention here before I move on: again, the church is a body. What the church accomplishes as we go into the year 2000 will be as a body of people. It’ll be as a team of people. There was an excellent interview with Pat Riley years ago on the Charlie Rose show and he talked about how he built the championship team at the Lakers and then how it all fell apart as well. Very instructive. I wish I would have gotten the videotape, but I thought repeatedly, and Riley has a book out about it, and I don’t know that he’s a Christian, probably not, but he certainly puts in some biblical truths into the book, quotes some scripture, etc.

And it’s certainly true that the way he talked about the Lakers was this: that every player has to play to his performance level, his to his best he can play no matter what particular position on the team he’s playing. Pat Riley learned that lesson early in basketball. He played on the Lakers with Jerry West and he had very little playing time, but his role on the team was to keep Jerry West up to snuff in practice. It was to run West, take his legs off of him. It was to keep him running, keep him working hard. That’s what Riley did. That was his part of the team. And because of that West was a better player.

And so what I’m saying is that in terms of commending each other and seeing what we’re doing on the team at Reformation Covenant Church, what we have to recognize is that we may be doing as good as we can possibly do, but if we haven’t tried to encourage each other to play the role that God has for them on this particular team, then a team will not come together and succeed. The team is a team. It’s not a group of individuals. It’s a group of individuals who encourage each other in teamwork to attain to their highest level of performance.

And that’s the way churches prosper. That’s the way these men were. They encouraged each other to play their particular role as well as it could be played. No matter what role it is on the team, some are more glorious—Jerry West. Some are less glorious—Pat Riley—but they all work together in terms of the body of Christ to manifest the Lord Jesus Christ and to cause the work to go on. And part of the need as we deal with one another, with our teammates, is not just to commend him. We have to exhort each other.

Look at what Joshua goes on to say in verse 5. You’ve done these things great. You’re going to go to rest. But be, take careful heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you, to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, to keep his commandments, to hold fast to him, to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

He exhorts them. Real men speak words of exhortation, of command to one another. Keep the commandments of God. He commends before he commands, but he does command them and exhort them to faithfulness. The basis for this exhortation that Joshua gives them is unity and adherence to the law of God. And you see, there’s no distinction between loving the Lord your God and walking in his ways and keeping his commandments. It’s of a piece.

The exhortation is based upon the word of God. It’s based upon the unity that these brothers in peace now have in the word of God. John Calvin said that the vanity and inconstancy of the human mind is such that religion easily falls away but carelessness and contempt soon creep in. We therefore need exhortation to zeal and diligence in heeding the law.

I been sick for—gee, I don’t know—a week and a half or something. Still have a cough. And it seems like part of this stuff, this flu, whatever it was, produces a general listlessness. If you’ve ever had a flu that does that or a cold, but sometimes when you get sick, you get kind of listless. You sort of lose your spark. You can’t quite get it going. You know, your body will get up if you tell it to get up, but you just don’t want to. Well, the same thing’s true of our Christian walk.

I think we can, left to ourselves, develop a listlessness. As Calvin said, our heart is prone to inconstancy. And we need therefore exhortations from one another this way of walking in it. And so Joshua does that. That’s the second kind of speech that real men engage themselves in.

Now the third kind of speech is a little more difficult. You can think of these levels of speech like increasingly difficult levels of a video game, okay? Pretty easy as long as you remind yourself to commend somebody. You know, the problem is forgetfulness. The problem is not really putting the weight on other people that we should. But once you hear that correction, I’ll bet a lot of you commend each other a lot this next week. Pretty easy thing to do. And it’s pretty easy to generally exhort each other to faithfulness. A little tougher than commendation. But this third kind of speech that real men use—speech that is confrontational, words that confront—now, not commend or command and exhort, but now words that are confrontational about specific sin. That’s difficult. We don’t like to do that.

Our kids probably like to do that far too much. But adults do not typically engage in this kind of speech. And we see this recorded. What happens here in the text is that these two and a half tribes build this altar, huge thing apparently, big altar, and they named it Ed, which means witness. And then the people, the Trans-Jordanian tribes on the west side of the Jordan, hear about it.

And you remember—now at this point in redemptive history, there’s one central sanctuary. Everybody had to go to Jerusalem and Jerusalem only to make the sacrifices. Three times a year all the males are required to go up. And even if, even apart from that, you couldn’t sacrifice locally. That couldn’t be done. Tremendous violation of the clear law of God relative to worship.

And so when they built this altar it looked like they were going to start sacrifices there. And so the tribes, the Trans-Jordanian tribes get together and say, “Whoa, this is a bad deal. We’re going to have to go over there and let these guys know that this can’t happen.” So they get together a delegation of men to go and confront these tribes over their false system of worship—this trying to set up a sacrificial system apart from going to Jerusalem.

Now at the head of this delegation is Phineas, son of Eleazar. Do you remember who Phineas is? Phineas is the spear chucker. Phineas is the guy who gets commanded by God. And as part of the restoration of the Levites as they begin to move toward the promised land—remember the Levites were kind of under a curse somewhat because Levi had participated in that improper use of circumcision for the sake of his sister Dinah’s reputation. And so, you know, they weren’t supposed to have any land in the promised land. But the Levites are sort of recovered somewhat when Phineas—under the, when the plague of God is breaking out against God’s people as they’re moving toward the promised land.

Remember, Balaam has these pretty Midianite gals entice them. And so this immorality is going on. And really, it’s following a different god. And Phineas is the guy who throws a spear through an Israelite and a woman that he’s with and puts an end to—puts an end essentially to God’s judgment by bringing God’s judgment to bear. Phineas, see, was willing to kill one of his brothers of his family for the sake of the glory of God. That’s who Phineas was. And the message from Baal Peor was that you had to love God more than you loved your fellow brother. If they’re sinning, you got to act to cut them out.

So they send Phineas at the head of this delegation to the Trans-Jordanian tribes to warn them against what they’re doing. Now the point of this is they mean business. They don’t use winsome words as properly understood in our culture today. They don’t use soft words. They use very hard words.

We read in verse 16, look at what they say. And they say, “Thus says the whole congregation of the Lord: What treachery is this that you have committed against the God of Israel to turn away this day from following the Lord and that you have built for yourselves an altar that you might rebel this day against the Lord? Is the iniquity of Peor not enough for us from which we are not cleansed until this day, although there was a plague in the congregation of the Lord, but that you must turn away this day from following the Lord? And it shall be if you rebel today against the Lord, that tomorrow he will be angry at the whole congregation of Israel. Don’t do this,” they say.

They don’t go over and say, “God, God, we’re not quite sure. I’m not sure this is really a good thing to do. Have you thought it through?” No, they are forthright men. Real men are forthright about their concerns relative to one another. They’re forthright.

Real men who understand this kind of confrontational speech think of what’s behind it. First of all, they’re thinking historically, right? They’re thinking of what happened historically when a portion of the tribe of Israel was allowed to enter into idolatry with other gods. They’re thinking historically. Do we think historically? Do we recognize this is our history? And it has very real significance to us and we should cite this kind of history when we confront one another about obvious sin or sin that seems obvious to us that we need to talk about.

These men were thinking covenantally as well as historically. They knew that it wasn’t just those guys who had suffered the judgment of God. All of Israel, they said, would suffer the judgment of God. Achan sinned in the thing that he transgressed in—in the forbidden thing—but not he didn’t die alone. They go on to tell these brothers in peace. We got to understand that we can’t let sin exist in the context of the body because God judges the body corporately, covenantally.

Real men think historically and real men think covenantally and real men think theologically. Boy, this is the most important point. The biggest trait that this passage carries is the need for fidelity to Yahweh, to fidelity to the greater Joshua, the Lord Jesus Christ, fidelity to God. And particularly when it comes to worship, real men today think that being a Christian is somehow effeminate or whatever. But no, real men think theologically. They are committed to the honor and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And they are committed, notice here, to purity in worship. That’s what we’re talking about here—they were worshiping. They thought they were going to worship with this altar.

Real men think historically, covenantally, theologically, and real men think biblically. They had clear commandment from the word of God that they had to go to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices and no other place. This was not, you know, one of those fuzzy areas, not sure it’s right or wrong. This was an area that if they were going to use that for sacrifice was a clear abomination. And so their forthright speech has as its background this historic, covenantal, theological, and biblical thinking that these real men engage themselves in. That is so apart from the spirit of our age, is it not?

I’m okay. You’re okay. Democracy is what we’re involved with. Everybody does your own thing and that’s all right. And particularly when it comes to worship—because who knows what that should all be about. Who cares how you know the worship goes as long as it’s making people feel good. But you see, they are committed here to putting worship as so high a priority that not only are they not going to make the other guy feel good by their worship, they’re willing to execute the other guy should they worship falsely and turn from God.

Real men speak confrontationally. We need a light passion for true biblical piety today. We need a radical commitment to the worship of God and a godly anxiety when people wander from the fold of true worship and devotion to God and to his covenant. There is no more striking proof of Israel’s commitment to God in this story—their commitment to God and to his covenant and to his worship—than this. They were ready to go to war over this matter, fidelity to God in terms of worship. What a sign of their commitment as real men to the honor and glory of Yahweh, to placing God over, if need be, the concerns of the extended family.

Remember that the half tribe of Manasseh here—Manasseh, and it says this very explicitly in the text—was divided at this time, right? Got half of them over here and half of them over here. So when the children of Israel are represented to go to these guys, they’re speaking also on behalf of this half tribe of Manasseh that’s on Israel’s side. So the implication is the half tribe of Manasseh is willing to make war against the other half tribe of Manasseh if they fall from the faith and worship falsely before God.

Now they don’t go off have come. They don’t go off and make war. They use confrontational speech. But don’t think by that I mean that you are automatically to condemn and to come to final judgment and execute people. They don’t do that, and in fact you can see that in their language itself they have this compassion. I said earlier that you know this—the things that Chris talked about from First Peter: be of one mind. That’s what they’re exhorting—this unity. They’re exhorting unity in terms of the fidelity to worship of God. Have compassion on one another and love as brothers. These guys are loving their brothers by going to their what they think are sinning brothers and confronting them about that sin. That’s what love does.

But they’re also having compassion. Notice what they say here. This is rather remarkable. They say, uh, in verse 19: “If the land of your possession is unclean, then cross over to the land of the possession of the Lord where the Lord’s tabernacle stands and take possession among us.” They’re willing to help them in their sin. You know, they’re thinking, “Well, you know, maybe you did this because things are so bad here. You need to be over with us. If so, we’re not going to kill you. We’re going to call you to repentance, but then we’re going to usher you into homes in our homes. We’ll share our land with you if that’s what it takes.”

You see the compassion they had on each other even in terms of confrontation. And what a lesson that is to us because confrontation can be done in the flesh, of course. But biblical confrontation is blended with a compassion that says you’ve got huge problems now. Let me help you to move away to reform your life away from those problems. Let me sacrificially share of my land if need be if that’s what it takes to move you brother to obedience in this area. You see, it’s not a censorious spirit. Even though it’s confrontational and they’re willing to make war if need be, they are hoping for the best. They’re hoping all things even while they’re confronting their brothers about their sins.

Now, another thing they do here is they go to the people with the problem. I know that this isn’t ideal in this particular situation, the sin is a public sin. It’s a huge construction project that’s happened. So everybody knows about it and so they deal with it rather publicly. But still they go to the parties who are committing the offense, okay?

Now, what I’m trying to encourage us to do is each of us individually should commend each other probably more than we do. Each of us should exhort each other to faithfulness to God’s law even though it doesn’t look like we need it because we tend to become listless, flu-like in our torpor of mind and spirit to God’s word. We need to exhort each other even if there’s nothing wrong going on. And then three, we need to occasionally, when need occurs, confront one another based upon the word of God.

Now what I want to say here is that confrontation is normally a matter of you going to the person that you see has sin going on in their particular life, okay? I’m not going to know. Most sin isn’t public. You may know things about someone in your family, a friend of yours, an acquaintance, a closer friend at church. You may know something in their life that needs correction. I don’t want you to come to me about that at first. See, because the scriptures say very clearly in Matthew 18 that you’re supposed to go to the person you think is sinning. See.

Proverbs 25:9: “Debate your case with your neighbor and do not disclose the secret to another, okay?” So, when you confront people, the goal purpose is to try to get them to forsake the sin so that nobody else has to know how they screwed up, right? You’re supposed to debate your cause to your neighbor and don’t disclose the secret to another. Proverbs 11:13: “A talebearer reveals secrets. But he who is a faithful spirit conceals a matter.”

See, you go to the person that’s sinning that you know about. You don’t go to somebody else to talk it over. You go to that person and hopefully you can conceal the matter because they’re going to come to repentance. If they don’t, then it’s no longer virtuous to conceal a matter because you have direct obligation in Matthew 18 to bring back a second party and then if need be to tell it to the church. Second party could be an elder. Take an elder to go with you. Maybe not, maybe just a friend who knows the person and can exhort them to faithfulness. You need to do this. You need to personally engage yourself in what can be seen by some as very confrontational speech to the end of recovering a brother who is sinning.

Proverbs 20:19 says, “He who goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets. Therefore, do not associate with one who flatters with his lips.” See, be careful with people that flatter you because you’re not supposed to. The end result of a flatter is he’s usually getting information to take to somebody else.

In First Peter 2, we have the kinds of speech that prevent the sort of real men behavior that’s portrayed for us in Joshua 22. And I heard this morning on KPDQ a sermon being preached to us. It was pretty good. “Wherefore aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisy and envy and all evil speakings, desire the sincere milk of the word.”

When you don’t—you see, real men speak biblically, covenantally, confrontationally, exhortation. But when we Adamic men—let’s put it that way—how they speak is with malice and guile, hidden agendas is what guile is all about. Hypocrisies, not being who you purport to be. Envyings, looking at what somebody has, desiring it and tearing it down because you can’t have it. And slanders, evil speakings, talking to other people about problems that really you haven’t talked to the person themself about or brought it to a conclusion. Or if they have repented, you continue to portray them in an evil way or maybe in an untrue way to others, slandering.

Those are the speech we’re supposed to put off. And the speech we’re supposed to put on as real men is commendation, exhortation, and confrontation.

Now, one other thing about this before we go into last kind of speech: there was a track record that preceded this confrontational speech. In other words, they had fought side by side with these tribes. And that you got to factor that into the equation. If you have no relationship with another Christian here at the church, it probably—you know, I’m not saying you shouldn’t confront someone else, but if you have relationship with each other and have taken the time to build some degree of relationship, then when you commend, it’s believed more. When you exhort it’s listened to better. And when you confront it’s taken with the light with the spirit in which it’s given because you know it’s coming from a friend and not from someone else, okay?

And then the final kind of speech that real men engage themselves in is consilitation. Now the amazing thing about this lesson is that nobody blows up. You know, Phineas doesn’t go off half-cocked. They go over saying this is really bad. We’re going to have to make war on you if you don’t turn. We’re willing to offer you our homes if need be to come over and live with us. And then the two and a half tribes, they don’t blow up.

Their motivation was proper. They were also thinking historically, not in terms of the past, but in terms of the future. They were thinking covenantally, not in terms of judgment, but in terms of maintaining the covenantal unit of the tribes both on each side of the Jordan. You see, they were thinking biblically. They wanted their children and their children to continue to worship at Jerusalem. And they were afraid that the future might bring temptations that would split apart the unity that’s formed on the basis of worshiping God in a central sanctuary.

They were afraid that the tribes in the west of the Jordan would start to talk against the tribes on the other side of the Jordan and create division and schism. They were thinking in terms of covenantal succession, not just their own fidelity, but the fidelity to God of their children. And so they constructed this altar as a way, as a visual representation that it’s over there, children, that were supposed to go worship. And you on that side of the river. When you see this, remember us that we’re part of you too. See, they were thinking proper.

And when they saw their good being spoken of negatively, they didn’t blow up and take offense over that. They were humble. They humbled themselves to their brothers who were confronting him. And they said, you know, “The Lord God of Israel, the Lord God of gods”—double formula. They’re affirming their truthfulness here. They’re taking an oath. “He knows. Let all Israel know. If indeed we’ve rebelled or in treachery or in treachery against the Lord, kill us.” They’re willing to submit their necks to the guillotines, so to speak, of God’s judgment if necessary.

They have that nape of the neck shaved. You know, that came from the French Revolution. You were supposed to have a haircut where the nape at the back of your neck didn’t have any hair on it and that’s a visual picture that you’re ready to go to the guillotine for the greater glory of the state if need be. That’s why you’re supposed to shave like that, have those haircuts like we all have. Well, when we see that back of the nape, that should be our reminder that we’re willing—