Dennis Tuuri

We turn today to a text that I actually mentioned last week in a postcard I got from another pastor in the CRC. And I heard very good news about his church this week and things seem to be going well. And I thought it would be good to return to that brief reference and actually look at a very interesting account in Joshua 22 as an example of the proper bridling of a tongue to accomplish the goal of the ship of state staying on course.

Joshua 22 and actually 23 and 24 are almost three appendices to the book of Joshua. The end of chapter 21, it says not one word failed or fell to the ground of all the promises God spoke to them. So the book is kind of wrapped up at the end of chapter 21 and then there’s three chapters where Joshua summons different people and they serve as sort of an appendix to the book. And chapter 22 is the first of those and we’re only going to read the first nine verses or so, but we’ll look at the entire chapter and what he does is he summons the two and a half trans-Jordanian tribes.

Okay, let me get this in your mind before we read it so you’ll understand it a little bit better. When they went in to conquer the land, two and a half tribes ended up with their inheritance on the other side of the Jordan River. So sometimes you’ll hear them discussed as the trans-Jordanian, across the Jordan tribes. They live on the east of the Jordan River. That’s their inheritance. Nine and a half tribes are on the west of the Jordan River.

So it’s these two and a half tribes who have assisted their brothers to secure the area for the nine and a half tribes. Now they’re going to go home to their inheritance. And Joshua summons them and begins to talk to them. And a very critical incident happens, a crucial conversation we could say. And we’re going to look at that today as an example of how the scriptures show us leaders using their tongues properly to affect kingdom purposes.

So please stand. We’ll read verses 1-9. And as I said, we’ll go through all 34 verses. Joshua 22:1-9. Then Joshua called the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-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 in all that I commanded you. You have not left your brothers 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 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 care, 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 a 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, the trans-Jordanian tribes, 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, and 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.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this text before us. Help us, Father, to see in this chapter commendable speech where people are commended for their good efforts of helping others, and they’re then blessed. Good words are spoken over them, and then they’re also commanded and exhorted and encouraged to follow you, to love you, and as a result of that to walk in the way that you’ve determined for us and revealed to us. Bless us, Lord God, that our speech may be like-minded with what we see reflected in this chapter even in the difficult words that will come shortly. Bless us, Father, with a knowledge of how to possess the land you have given us in the Lord Jesus Christ, how to live in this world. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated.

So James has told us in chapter 3 and also at the end of chapter 1 about the significance of the proper use of the tongue. He hasn’t given us a lot of examples of what that means. We want to follow Jesus, right? And so this story of Joshua, whose name is the same as Jesus, helps us to see how to follow Jesus in our speech, particularly with one another, how to see it properly bridled, controlled, and used to affect well-being, peace, unity, and a commitment to the glory of God.

We’ll see that in a couple of minutes. So we want to follow Jesus and I think this text will help us to do that. James, as I said, tells us the significance of the tongue and he gives us a little bit of help in chapter 3 in terms of what we’re to avoid with the sins of our tongue. The only specific thing he talks about is cursing other people in anger. This is different from the pronouncements that the church of Jesus Christ makes asking for God’s judgment on those who are killing innocent children, for instance.

This is a cursing that’s personal, driven by anger. So we certainly know that kind of speech he’s warning us against. Now he’s also given us another hint in James chapter 3. He’s told us a couple of things. He says that the tongue is set on fire. The tongue is lit on fire by hell. So he says the origin of the tongue’s difficulties is hell, the abiding place of the judgment of Satan, the devil.

He’s also said that the tongue is full of poisonous venom. And he says this in the context of discussion of taming animals, which is a clear reference back to the account of the fall. So by implication, what he’s telling us in James 3 about the tongue is deceptive speech, right? I mean, cursing is one thing and then the other thing he’s warning us against is Satan’s speech. And Satan’s speech is deceptive. It’s smooth words, but it’s smooth words that take us in a wrong direction. And in James 3, he’s just critiqued wrong doctrine, right, and this is wrong doctrine that’s been taught to them by some of their preachers or teachers. And so this is an example where smooth words and speech is given, but takes the people of God in a completely wrong direction. So he’s had to rebuke them for that. He will say strong things as we get into the last half of chapter 3 and then in chapter 4 to the church, the churches that he’s addressing.

He will use his tongue in strong, powerful language and it’ll be more instruction for us on how we’re to bring our tongues meekly to Jesus, how we follow Jesus with our tongues. And as I said last week, it’s very important to remember that when the phone needs bridling—not mine. Okay, thank you. I was about ready to dance. Pleasant tone, by the way. Thank you.

So Jesus tells us that the meek will inherit the earth. And so often we think that meek means weak or limp-wristed or whatever it is. But meek simply means broken to harness. It was a word used of big, strong horses that were broken to the harness. In other words, they could be ridden and controlled by their master. Jesus doesn’t want broken horses in the sense of broken-down horses. He doesn’t want weak horses. He doesn’t want horses that just sort of limp down the road. He wants you to be a charging steed for the kingdom, but he wants you meek in the sense of being under the control, under the dominion of him. You’re following Jesus with your strengths. That’s another way to think of meekness.

And so, when we think about the tongue, it’s not as easy as just thinking, “Oh, I guess I better be a little bit careful with my tongue.” It’s a little more complex than that, at least from James’s perspective.

One other thing before I move on. I should have mentioned this last week, but his big concern is this deception. And the deception specifically that led in the previous chapter to false doctrine. And he’ll talk about the kind of speech that ends up in creating disorder and contention or actually speech that is actually driven by disorder and contention and jealousy in chapter 4. He’ll really warn about that jealousy thing.

Well, this false doctrine idea—I think I might have mentioned this, I’m not sure I did—but in Revelation, when the trumpet sounded, we read that the third angel sounded and a great star fell from heaven burning like a torch and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood and many men died from the water because it was made bitter.

Now remember James at the end of the section in chapter 3 talked about bitter water or good water. And this star is Satan being judged and coming to earth. He’s wormwood. And what he does is he pollutes the rivers. And you know this is not a description of actual rivers being polluted. You know, what are the rivers of life in the Bible? Well, it’s the proclamation of the gospel. It’s the truth coming out of the temple to fill the world with the knowledge of God.

And so after the church is expelled or kicked out of Jerusalem because of persecution, wormwood will follow them. It’ll follow them through the rivers. That is the proclamation of God’s word. He will foul the proclamation of God’s word. And as a result of that, a lot of people will end up deceived and dying. So that’s the kind of thing I think that James is talking about in chapter 3.

Now we want to turn to Joshua 22 as I said earlier as an example of the meekness that will inherit the earth and also as an example of Matthew 5:9, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. These are peacemaking guys in Joshua 22. These are guys that have conquered the land. Now, they haven’t done it perfectly. But you know, these are—you have to get the right mindset about the kind of men we’re talking about. These are good guys. These guys that are committed to God, okay? They’re warrior guys. And they’re not just warriors. They’re victorious warriors. Okay? This is who these fellas are.

I think when I first preached this, I called them real men. That’s kind of probably not a good term, but godly guys, warrior guys, victorious guys who are going to follow Jesus and win, right? Even though winning sometimes comes through our death, our sacrifice. But godly guys is what’s going on in Joshua 22. Their speech is placed before us. And of course, the first words that are referred to here are the words of Joshua, Jesus, so to speak, right? He speaks first, okay?

And so what I want to do is look at the different speeches that happen in Joshua 22, and give an example of how there be an example to us of the kind of godly speech, the bridling of the tongue that I think James could be referring to and that certainly is true. You know Joshua 1:21 they go in and they take the land, they possess the land. Joshua 22-24 is kind of how do you live in the land, right? So it’s kind of like credenda and agenda. Ephesians 1:3 is what do you believe, Ephesians 4-6 is what do you do. So Joshua 22-24 is kind of what you do—it’s the how you live in the land stuff. And so it’s very significant to us, I think, and we want to use it as an example of speech, the sort of speech that happens.

Okay, so the first thing we notice in the verses we just read is that godly guys, warrior victor guys commend other people, right? That’s what he says. Now, the background is the two and a half tribes could have just gone to their land in the trans-Jordan, the other side of the Jordan. They had conquered that, okay? They were able to live there, but they were commanded by Moses to help the rest of the tribes of Israel possess their land.

So even though they wanted to go home, they would rather be at home, they were helping the rest of the tribes conquer their enemies on the west side of the Jordan. And so now that’s been accomplished, you know, mission accomplished, they’re going to go home. And so it’s very important to recognize that godly victorious guys commend others, right? We should commend people with our speech, give them glory in terms of what they have done.

And that’s where the beginning of the story happens. It happens with commendation. “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” Right? That’s what Joshua Jesus is telling these tribes.

Secondly, though, real men exhort one another. So what I read as well—maybe we, you know, as I read it, you might have glanced over it or not heard it really well—but in verse 5, after he commends them, he says, “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 of his ways, to keep his commandments, to hold fast to him, and to serve him with all your heart, with all your soul.”

So, you know, real men, victorious men, godly victor men also exhort each other to walk in love for God. And the love is the beginning of the list of the thing he exhorts or commands them to do. And that love is demonstrated by how well he keeps the word of God. So, you know, this is not like the Old Testament is law, the New Testament is grace. The Old Testament is love the Lord your God, then it’s love your neighbor. Right? It’s the same thing as Jesus talks about. So he commands them and exhorts them to love God, right? In a way that’s what we’re doing every Lord’s day and that’s what we should do with one another. We shouldn’t hold back from occasionally exhorting one another to love God. And then to link the love of God with the keeping of his word. It’s really quite simple.

So godly victor sort of guys not only commend each other but they also exhort, caution or command others. Now this is a little more difficult, right? Kind of easy to tell people, yeah, good job. A little more difficult to say, well now you better be careful to follow God, right? And the other person can say, well, hey, what are you telling me that for? I know that. Come on. But that’s what we’re supposed to do. Okay, so it’s a little bit more difficult speech. The speech gets more and more difficult as we go through this account to actually do.

But becomes exceedingly important. He commends them before he commands them. But on the other hand, he does indeed command them.

Let me say too that Matthew Henry in his commentary on Joshua 22, before we get into the tough part of the chapter, he says everything here is to be commended. There’s no negatives going on here. These are all godly guys and they’re doing good things. It’s an appendix given as an example of how to live godly lives, particularly through the proper bridling, we could say, of one’s tongue. So he blesses them and then he commands them, right? And his basis for his exhortation is love demonstrated by cleaving to the law. And by the way, first and foremost, it’s love not for our fellow man. First and foremost, it’s love for God. We’ll see that here. It’s a very important part of what’s told us in Joshua 22.

Here’s a quote I don’t remember now. This is an old quote. Yeah, maybe Matthew Henry said, “The vanity and inconstancy of the human mind is such that religion easily falls away, but carelessness and contempt soon creep in. We need exhortations to zeal and diligence in heeding the law of God. We need that and we should be administering that to one another.” Okay.

Third, tougher speech. Real men confront one another. Okay. Now we got to go back to the text and read beyond verse 9.

Let’s see what happens. You know, if you’re—this is a very simple text to outline. There’s speeches and then there’s this action that’s going on while the speeches are happening. So if you have Joshua 22 open, read with me or look with me to verse 10 of Joshua 22.

Open your Bibles, get your smartphones rolling, use that new cool Bible app. Go to your Bible. Don’t open the one in Dutch as I mistakenly did week ago. So now I got to figure out how to get out of Dutch and into English. But if you’re Dutch, I think there’s a Dutch Bible on our church app. Anyway, okay.

So verse 10. 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. So they go across the river and they build an altar there by the Jordan. A great impressive altar, big thing. People could see it.

Now the children of Israel heard someone say, “Behold, the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh have 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.” You think, “Well, what’s that all about?”

Well, number one command is to love God by worshiping him. And in this time of redemptive history, they were told they only could worship at the altar in the place, the city that God had established. So there’s one altar for all Israelites to come to. And you’ll remember that later on in history when the north and south break up—this is east and west, but when the north and south break up after Rehoboam’s goofiness, stupidity, you know—the northern guys are afraid that their people will want to go down to Jerusalem and when they go down to worship three times a year they’ll identify with the southern tribes.

So they create alternate altars in the north and it’s idolatry. I don’t care how good the altar looks. Could be a duplicate of the one God wants you to build. But if you’re setting up an alternate altar and opposed to go obeying God and loving him by obeying where he wants you to worship, that’s a huge deal. And these guys are zealous for God. They just went through death, carnage, difficulties, struggles, fatigue, exhaustion to win this land because they love God.

Remember, this is the conquering generation. The rest of them had died off in the wilderness. These people are godly. They’ve been trained by God for 38 years in the wilderness. They’ve gone through drills and marches and instruction. They’ve been told what’s right and what’s wrong. They’ve been encouraged to cleave to God. And they did. And they were ready to go in and take the land. These are godly guys.

And what it says is when they heard about this altar and they heard that some people were saying what this altar was, it says they were going to—they met at Shiloh to go to war against them. Then the children of Israel, verse 13, sent Phineas the son of Eleazar the priest to the children of Reuben, to the children of Gad, and to half the tribe of Manasseh into the land of Gilead, and with the 10 rulers, one ruler 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, and 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 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 if 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 the accursed thing? And wrath fell on all the congregation of Israel? And that man did not perish alone in his iniquity.”

All right. What’s going on? They’re saying, “Look, we love God above all else. We love God more than you. And if you’re rebelling against God, we’re going to kill you.” Okay? It appears to us you’ve built this altar as a substitute for the altar of God. In other words, they say, “You got an altar, you’re going to be sacrificing on that. You can’t do that, man. God hates that.” And because God hates it, we hate it. And if you’re going to turn against God in that way, you’re really worshiping another God. And we’re going to kill you. We’re going to make war right now.

Now, you know, there’s great—so there’s tremendous real men confront each other, right? Godly, victorious guys are ready to go to war if necessary for the exceeding glory of God. And they’re ready to do it against their own people.

Now there’s another indication of what I just said. Who’s at the front of this group? Phineas. Do you know who Phineas is? Children, do you know who Phineas is? I’ll tell you about Phineas. Phineas in the wilderness—remember Balaam was going to curse Israel and he couldn’t do it. He says, “Look, there’s no cursing people that God is in favor of, but I’ll tell you what we do. We’ll send those beautiful Midianite women in there and have them have sex with the Israelite guys and then God will hate them and God will come turn against them.” Right, so that’s what they do. Phineas, when this begins, when sexual immorality begins—and children, you teens, when sexual immorality begins God brings judgment—and so what happens is God says, “Hey, this has to stop,” and Phineas, son of Eleazar, right, the priest, Phineas has a spear and he takes the spear and there’s an Israelite guy kissing a Midianite woman, ungodly woman, and they’re getting him to follow other gods, and he throws a spear through the two of them.

By the way, it says it goes through her belly. I don’t—another whole thing we could talk about—but he spears them through. This is the guy at the head of this group that are encountering and confronting Israel for their sins. He’s ready to go to war. He’s good at it. He throws the spear really well. And more than that, he has demonstrated his commitment to the honor and glory of God above his family and above the tribes of Israel and what he did in the wilderness.

We don’t want to throw the spear against people we love—family, direct family, members of the congregation, members of the body of Christ. Phineas, though, and the only reason we’re ever going to pull the trigger and excommunicate people, for instance, is because we place the honor and glory of God above the love of our neighbor, if it’s understood in that particular way. That’s what we’ve got to do. Victorious godly guys have speech that indicates that the glory of God is ultimate in their value system.

So I’m great with our vision statement, “loving the triune God and our neighbor as ourselves.” If we understand those are not equivalent—one flows out of the other. Okay? One flows out of the other. As Jesus said, there’s a first and great one. The second one is like unto it. It comes out of it. It’s got to be subservient. So Phineas is this guy who puts the glory of God above family. He’s demonstrated it before. He’s doing it here.

You know, the last time we hear about Phineas is—well, it isn’t. There’s a reference to him in the Psalter, but the last historical event is when Benjamites, that whole tribe, do wicked things and the rest of Israel has to make war on them. And Phineas is the advisor for that war. Again, he’s involved in attacking, you know, covenantal brothers, so to speak, the Benjamites when their sin deserves the judgment of God on them.

Now listen, Phineas is really important. You know what God says to him after he throws that spear through the bad couple? God says, “I give to him because of that—because he honors and glorifies me above man, fellow man—because he has that kind of commitment to me, I’m giving him the covenant of peace, and his people will be the priestly tribe. Those are the people that will serve me, scattered throughout your people.” Those are the Levites. This is where the Levites as the priestly tribe and Aaron’s son Eleazar and his descendants including Phineas. This is how they get the priesthood. Okay? It hasn’t been set up yet. And they get the priesthood because the priests particularly must be committed to the glory of God above their fellow man. The only way to serve your fellow man is to love God ultimately. Right? Okay. And this is what it says in Numbers. God gives them the covenant of peace.

Now, one last part of this story. Okay. What you need to know this as well. You remember Levi, right? The actual son of Jacob, right? Levi got real ticked off. His sister went out talking to the guys in the neighborhood, ends up improperly in a relationship with one of them. That guy loves her. He wants to marry her. But Levi is so ticked off that this guy had his way with his sister, okay, and he’s messing around with his sister. He says, “Look, you and your buds, you just circumcise yourself, then I’ll let you marry her.” Okay, that’s what he tells them.

So they do it. They’re saying, “Sure.” And you know, God does this, right? God uses the love of a woman or the love of a guy. He frequently uses all kinds of things to bring people to him. Well, I don’t know what their intentions were, but they appear to have been legitimately desirous of relationship with God, and they get circumcised.

Well, they’re adult guys, and circumcision is no fun process for adults. I just heard the story the other day of a marathon runner that’s why he runs so well—is because he had was circumcised as an adult and ended up running to try to get rid of the pain. He became world-class marathon runner. Well, okay. So these guys get circumcised, right? They’re laying around in pain and Levi and one of his brothers kill him. They kill him. They use the covenant sign that God had given to them as a device for their own sinful, you know, concern for the dishonoring of their sister, a family member. Okay? They place their sister above God, and they do it so badly that they use God and his covenant sign to trick these fellas and to kill them.

And God said to Levi, then, “You guys are getting no land when we go into the promised land. When you conquer the land, your tribe, you get nothing. You can’t have your own piece of property like the other tribes.” It was a curse. You know, if you look at the maps, right, of Israel in this time period, there’s no Levi area. There’s these all these other tribes have their area, but the Levites don’t. They’re scattered in the midst of the other tribes. It was a curse. And it was a curse because Levi loved people. He loved his family more than God. Brothers and sisters, let’s learn that lesson. That’s a huge mistake. It’s wrong. It’s sin. But sin can be redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ.

And when Phineas comes along later, a descendant of Levi, and he says, “I’m for God and against my brothers and sisters, if need be, I will bring the death penalty against them that God has called us to do.” When he puts God above, well, now what happens to him is those Levites who were cursed with no land—now they’re the blessing of God to people. Now they’re the ones, you know, they still get no land. God doesn’t change his mind about that. But now they’ve got their own little cities. And in these cities, they’re the voice of God to the rest of their brothers and sisters. They’re the teaching ministry and the priestly ministry throughout the country. Isn’t that beautiful?

I love that story. Make sure your kids know it. You know, we went over it quickly just now. Teach your kids this story this afternoon, this week, right, in their Bible classes. So important, right? It’s so important on several levels. But that’s who Phineas is. He’s a guy that we see who reversed the curse against his tribe by glorifying God and as a result of that became a blessing to the tribes, to the tribes themselves.

All right. Now notice that these guys when they speak words of confrontation, do you notice this is plain, forthright language? There’s not a lot of, you know, “well, we thought we maybe should talk to you about this. Well, we don’t know. And you know,” they don’t do that. And they don’t talk with other people a bunch about it. They hear, “Well, these guys have built an altar to compete with God. They’ve apostatized.” They swing into action. They don’t sit around and stew about it. “And well, you know how bad those guys over there are. They’re doing this, that, and the other thing.” And no, they don’t do that. We shouldn’t do that. We should take action right now.

That’s what godly guys, victorious guys—and when I say guys, covenantal men and women—this is what we do. Forthright speech. If we can’t counter its forthright speech, we’re in trouble. The Bible is filled with forthright speech. All right? So these guys have forthright speech. This is how their tongues are properly bridled because by the end of this chapter, things are great.

Things are great. Believe me.

Another thing that godly guys know is that their fortunes, so to speak, their well-being is not just them and Jesus. No, they know Baal Peor. By the way, he mentions Peor here. Peor was the incident with the fornication with the Midianite women. That’s why Peor is in here. It reminds us of that story and who Phineas is. And very importantly, not every Israelite was fornicating with Midianite women. But God’s plague hit all of them. God treats us covenantally. Okay. And these guys say in here, “look, if you’re doing this thing, we’re going to get punished too. First of all, it’s dishonoring and unglorifying to God. You’re not loving God, right? Secondly, it’s going to hurt us too, because we’re covenantally linked to you.”

We have to bring judgment. You know, in a church, in a covenanted community, you have to understand that God treats us at some level and frequently as a covenantal unit. We’re tied to each other whether we like it or not. If you signed that membership covenant, that means the people that have signed that covenant, if they’re off doing this, that, or the other thing, it better be a concern to you because potentially it brings the judgment of God against the whole church. Okay? They know that.

Notice as well in this talk what they do. They say, “Look, do you have problems? If the problems over here where you’re at are tempting you to apostatize and to worship God improperly, come live with us. Move in with us. You know, you’re having trouble drinking, move in with us. We’ll help you with that. Right? That’s what they say here. So confrontation comes with an offer to be of practical assistance to the people that are sinning. Understand? Very important.

You know, the bridling of the tongue includes using the tongue under the harness of Jesus Christ to offer great assistance to those even as we’re rebuking them for what appears to us to be sin. Now it’s easy to commend people, tougher to commend people, and really tough to confront people. The speech is getting tougher, right? But it’s something that God is telling us. If you want to live in the land, if you want to follow Jesus Joshua, if you want to know that he conquered the world for you and how to live in it, this is it. Hard speech.

The next speech is even harder. The next speech is even harder. Let’s see. So where are we at? We’re so done. They’ve spoken. And so what do you do?

Put yourself in their shoes. As it turns out, this altar was not a competitive altar. The western tribes have completely misunderstood them. Okay? Completely. And so you’re doing something and a member of the church comes to you and says, “What are you doing that for? And that’s horrible. We’re going to kill you. I want to talk to the elders. We’re going to bring excommunication. Whatever it is, right. Now if you need help so you don’t drink so much, come to my house. I’ll help you dry out. Right? That’s what they do. And if somebody comes to you like that and accuses you and you know that what you did was completely okay and proper and in fact was even a good thing—we’ll see as the story goes on, they were actually trying to accomplish a positive result from building this altar. What do you do?

Well, your flesh is going to take offense. You’re going to say, “Well, son of God, what are you talking to me like that for? It’s none of your business. That’s the way you’re going to talk to me? Forget it. Stick it in your ear. Get out of here.” That’s what we’re normally tempted to do. It’s very hard to have humility to do what these guys do.

But this is the warrior class. These are the great guys. These are the examples to us of a properly bridled tongue and that can bridle the full body and can conquer the world or at least the land that God had given to them.

What did they say? Let’s see verse 21. If you have your text, look at verse 21. Then, so now we got the next speech. 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 if to offer on it burnt offerings or grain offerings, or to offer peace offerings on it, let the Lord himself require an account of us.”

So the first thing they say is, “You’re right. If we’re doing that, kill us. We don’t want to live if we’ve apostatized, found a different god or for worshiping God improperly.” Notice by the way that this whole thing is about worship. I mean to get in, you know, tough talk today in the church of Jesus Christ about worship. It’s inconceivable to us. Now quickly say that they had a very explicit word from God. They knew very clearly and plainly this is where they had to worship, right? So it is a clear word—but still it shows you godly men and women, conquering men and women, victorious men and women, properly bridled men and women. Worship is a big deal to them. It’s a big deal. Okay?

More important than unity. If unity is based upon, you know, false worship, dump the unity is what they’re saying. It’s more important. God—and what these tribes say instead of copping an attitude and hey, you know, what are you doing? You’re a jerk. No, they actually begin with twice invoking the name—the Lord our God. The Lord our God. They begin the discussion by trying to blunt the suspicions and fears of the other tribes that these guys are not committing to God. They call on God twice. You know, they’re saying, “We’re as committed to him as you are.” Really, they’re not saying it’s a bad attitude, but that’s what they’re saying, right? The Lord our God. The Lord our God.

And then they say, “If we did this, kill us.” You’re right. If we did that, kill us. So they got a great attitude, right? This is the harder, right? Hard to commend, hard to command, harder yet to confront, and harder yet to consiliate when we think we’ve been confronted improperly. But that’s what they do. That’s what winners do. How about that? Winning. This is what winners do in God’s world.

And then they say, “Okay, so look, we agree this is a big deal, but this isn’t what’s happening here.” And they begin to explain exactly what it is they’re doing, right? But they don’t start with that. Don’t tell us that. We were doing this. No, they begin by asserting their absolute adherence to the glory and worship of God. “If we’re doing this to have other worship, another worship place, this is bad. And you’re right. We should be we should be the subject of God’s capital punishment.”

But in fact, verse 24, “we have done it for fear, 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, your children—you children rather of Reuben and children of Gad, you have no part in the Lord.’”

They’re saying this is what you could be telling us later on. “You have no part in the Lord. You’re on the other side of the river.” So your descendants would make our descendants—our descendants rather cease fearing the Lord. Therefore we said, “Let us now prepare to build ourselves an altar, not for burnt offering, not for sacrifice, but that it may be a witness between you and us and our generations after us that we may perform the service of the Lord before him with our burnt offerings, with our sacrifices, 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 our children in the 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 offerings, nor for sacrifice, 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 offering, grain offering, or for sacrifice because the altar of the Lord our God which is before his tabernacle.”

Oh, okay. So it’s exactly the opposite, right? They’re saying, “Look, number one, what are they thinking about? They’re thinking about the future. You know, don’t let that pass. As we go quickly through this text, you know, victors, winners, people that are going to win—they think multigenerationally, right? They’re thinking about time to come and they say, “Look, we were afraid over time we’d drift apart and we wanted to have a witness reminding our people and your people that we’re all united and we’re united on the basis of what worship.

And we’re going to go and worship three times a year where we’re supposed to be worshiping. And this altar is a witness to all of that. That we know our unity is in worship. This is not to break us apart. This is actually just the reverse. We’ve built this replica to remind us that we’re one with you. To remind you that you’re one with us and that we have a commitment to go wherever the Lord tells us to go over in your territory to worship him. Unity through worship. Trying to think of ways to take care of pro[bable] future generational problems of succession, dealing with unity and worship.”

So you know their speech is really good, right? I mean these guys are we’re we’re going up here in difficulty. And when people do what’s right, it’s really remarkable and they do what’s right. They don’t take offense. They try to get on equal ground. “We’re committed to God too. If we did what you said we did, yeah, we agree. Excommunication. But that’s not what happened. Here’s the facts. And then they tell the story.”

And they help the other tribe to master the story they’ve told themselves, the other tribes about what this altar is, right? Well, we can see if you get the story right in your interpretation, they’re telling them, “You’re right. Kill us. But here’s actually more facts for you to put into your story. And here’s—we’re telling you, right? So they go about, you know, explicitly discussing the actual purpose of the altar.”

And what we find out is they’re winners too. They’re just—this is all good stuff. All a model for us of properly bridled tongues and hearts. And so they say this. Now what do you do if you’re these guys again, right, on the west side? “Well, you’re doing this bad. We’re going to have war against you. We’ll try to help you if we can, but you’re in bad stuff here.” And these guys say, “Well, no, no, no. I know it looks just like an offer, an altar. You build—you put sacrifices on. We know what it looks like, but actually it’s because we really want to be with you and be united to you.”

Well, you hear that story and our temptation, right? We’ve already staked our reputation. We’ve gone to somebody else. We’ve confronted them. We’re sort of—we sort of had to convince ourselves of that story to get up the courage and the grit to go and confront somebody. And we don’t necessarily immediately believe their explanation. Now sometimes we do where we leave that we were wrong, but but what I’m saying is you know the temptation again here will be to not accept that and say, “no, come on, it looks just like the other altar, it’s not good.” But these guys don’t do that. They believe the explanation offered by the trans-Jordanian tribes. And that’s in the next few verses.

Let’s read on.

“Now when Phineas the priest and the rulers of the congregation of the heads of the divisions of Israel who were with him heard the words that the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and the children of Manasseh spoke. It pleased them. It didn’t relieve them. They didn’t want to get out of the confrontation. It didn’t tick them off. They didn’t want to hold on to the confrontation. It pleased them because they are winners. They’re seeking the glory of God and based on loving God, unity of the church.”

So they’re pleased. And then “Phineas the son of Eleazar the priest said to the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, the children of half-tribe of Manasseh, ‘This day we receive—that the Lord is among us. We perceive rather 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. We’re not all going to get killed because of your sin. That’s great.’”

“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.”

Okay, so here’s the last little thing. You know, you’ve sent ambassadors over to talk to these guys about this altar that looks identical to the one the Lord is using in the land. They come back and say, “Well, they told us it’s not for that purpose.” And you’re like, “Wait a minute. Come on. I know it is. It looks just like it.” So one more test. But these are winners. It’s not just the leaders who are winners. The people are winners. They’re conquerors. And they hear the report from their leaders and they trust them in spite of what the evidence seems to be to the contrary. They believe the report of their leaders.

And that’s what we read. “So the thing pleased the children of Israel. And the children of Israel blessed God. We’re back to the priority of God here. They 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—or in the King James it is an altar named Ed. Ed. And Ed means witness. So this translation translates it, but you may know of the altar as Ed. Ed the altar. Ed means witness.”

“For it is a witness between us that the Lord is God.”

Ah, my just love that story. I love that whole chapter. I love the example it is to us. I love the wonderful way it exhorts us in so many different directions to have our tongues bridled. Not in the way the world would think, not in the way that, you know, is most pleasing to everybody else, but in a way that accomplishes the glory of God.

And that’s the conclusion of it. The Lord God is glorified. What else could we want? It’s a wonderful story, isn’t it? Beautiful story.

May the Lord God grant that we be winners, conquering, victorious people, right? Who properly bring our tongues under the bridle that is Jesus Christ. That we follow Jesus the way they follow Joshua’s speech. And as a result of that, that we live in the land peaceably. That the Lord God would cause us not just to live in the land, but to grow in the influence of the Christian church in this culture. May God grant us tongues that are properly under the harness of Jesus Christ, even when these difficult times come, even when we’re tempted, you know, to take offense, even when things—the facts that people tell us don’t seem to line up with what our eyes perceive, right?

May God give us a heart that places him at the top of our system of values, loving him, and as a result of that love of him to be able to talk strongly to one another but graciously at the same time and achieve a commitment to God that then is the basis for true Christian unity.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the ship of our lives, the course of our life. We thank you for the ship that is this church, our culture, etc. Thank you for this metaphor. Thank you for telling us that in spite of great waves and difficulties and trials we can get to safe harbor if we let our rudder be under the control of the Lord Jesus Christ. Bless us, Father, above all else with the commitment to you, the proper worship of you, love for you that creates a true unity in the world. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.