Joshua Chapter 22 Verse 10

• The style in which this is written, the words used, implies and describes this altar as impressive! Something to be seen and marveled at and that is significant. Significant because the altar in ancient culture, especially this culture, is not like the altar that we see today in some churches…where people receive communion or take time to pray or get married. We don’t have the same understanding and purpose culturally as we are reading here. The altar then was a place of sacrifice.

• Here’s the problem though. Here’s the rub. Because what we’re about to see in just a moment is the Children of Israel become enraged about this altar. Why? Deuteronomy 12, verses 1 - 14. The place of the altar of sacrifice was to be God’s choosing and there was to be only one. Still today, there is to be only one. (Leviticus 17:8-9) And what we see here is seemingly that these tribes have constructed a second altar, one that the Bible records as impressive, and to add insult to injury, they’ve done it on the west side of the Jordan!

Joshua Chapter 22 Verses 11 - 12

• Whoa. They didn’t send an email. They didn’t text. They didn’t send a message is what I’m saying. They prepared to take this right to their doorstep…even to the point of war. (Some of y’all go right to war without even hearing the other side!) But Wow! These are their brothers. This is their family, part of their body…but understand, to them, the news of this altar was an affront against Joshua and an offense against God. I mean we just read in Deuteronomy what God had laid out for them and here they go…against God Himself it appears.
• And so their reaction is immediate and automatic. Make war, even against their own brothers. Guzik calls this a “healthy body.” Able to purge itself of toxins. They’re not happy to do this, we will see that in the coming verses but…they will do it. Straight up go to war against even their own family for the sake of the Lord.
• It seems harsh. It seems heartless and cruel but change your gears for a moment…if this altar is a symbol of allegiance to false gods or a sign of open defiance, disregard and rebellion against God, against truth and all that is real and wonderful and good then wouldn’t it make sense, isn’t it critical, crucial to get at it before the cancer spreads and all is lost?
• I see this across the board in church families and in home families…allegiance to false gods, open disregard and rebellion against God and His Word…and it is not dealt with. And so weeks, month, years go by and by the time everyone is at wits end it is long gone too late…and so much is lost. One of the most unpopular characteristics of a healthy body, a healthy family, is to deal with the disease immediately and effectively.
• When Link acts up, which is often, and I spank him, I don’t do so with a “love tap.” How ineffective. I have to put some stremff into it so that he actually learns, so that he is forced even to take notice of the negative consequence of his misbehavior. An email, a letter, a request to change would have been entirely ineffective in this situation! And usually is in our own…(side note about my kids > if they listen to dad, they will LOVE life).
• Revelation 3:2 speaking to the dead church says, “Be watchful, strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God.” The children of Israel intended war…not to eradicate these two and a half tribes, but to turn them back to life and if need be, by powerful force and action. (plane story)

Joshua Chapter 22 Verses 13 – 18

• The iniquity of Peor, or sin of Peor, refers to the time the men of Israel were fooled into basically sleeping with Moabite women while they were east of the Jordan and in judgment a plague came upon them that killed 24,000 people. Phinehas was there by the way, intimately involved…he’s seen what happens when folks turn away from the Lord…

Joshua Chapter 22 Verses 19

• I love this heart. “If you can’t make it, if your land is no good, come to ours!” Couple things. First, anything is better than leaving them in a state of enmity with God! Also, this would cost them! Are you willing for it to cost YOU to see someone you love made right? And finally, this removes any excuses…oh the land made me do it…the people…it’s because of it, because of them…he removes the excuse or chance of an excuse and says, “Is not my own home open to you!?” And that really does remove any excuse of someone not able to do right…

Joshua Chapter 22 Verses 20 – 29

• Look at the first thing they say. “The Lord God of gods, He knows…” Their first refuge is God. What if their brothers don’t believe them…God knows the truth. They go to war…and they would prevail…

Joshua Chapter 22 Verses 30 – 34

• Big huge exhale…all a big misunderstanding, all is well. One thing to notice as we close…Its back in verse 31. I thought it was only 2 and one half tribes that were in trouble? But see this, “Now you have delivered the children of Israel out of the hand of the Lord.” All of us. The point? What you do against God and what you do not do in living for God reaches right into the hearts and lives of your family and damages them, abuses them…harms them.
• If that matters to you, you will systematically break down every altar to every false god in your heart…if that doesn’t matter to you, you have no right to claim that you love them and war is coming. This speaks not only of your blood family, but also your church family. Your work family. Your school family. Your neighborhood family. This speaks of any communal relationship situation you really have…sin never stays within the comfy couch of the choking, decelerated, slacking sinner…it likes to spread and always does…
• Same goes for love however. Same goes for faithfulness however. Every ounce of action and every crumb and trace and mite and morsel of love, serving others for the sake of God, honoring the cross of Jesus Christ, every gram is enjoyed by all within your reach…
• Which are you? Think of the last 10 pictures taken of you in group settings. Are you embracing those around you? Are you smiling and laughing although you remember that day, how hard it was. Are you making a silly face? Or is everyone doing that around you…embracing you…smiling for you…just a good way to get a temperature…
• Are you living for you…or are you living for the Lord, and living for them…have you built the profane altar? If so, tear it down before it tears you down and them along with you…

They tell the story of a mountain climber who, desperate to conquer the Aconcagua, initiated his climb after years of preparation. But he wanted the glory to himself, therefore, he went up alone. He started climbing and it was becoming later, and later. He did not prepare for camping, but decided to keep on going.

Soon it got dark. Night fell with heaviness at a very high altitude. Visibility was zero. Everything was black. There was no moon, and the stars were covered by clouds.

As he was climbing a ridge at about 100 meters from the top, he slipped and fell. Falling rapidly he could only see blotches of darkness that passed. He felt a terrible sensation of being sucked in by gravity. He kept falling... and in those anguishing moments good and bad memories passed through his mind. He thought certainly he would die.

But then he felt a jolt that almost tore him in half. Yes! Like any good mountain climber he had staked himself with a long rope tied to his waist. In those moments of stillness, suspended in the air he had no other choice but to shout: "HELP ME GOD. HELP ME!"

All of a sudden he heard a deep voice from heaven... "What do you want me to do?"

"SAVE ME."

"Do you REALLY think that I can save you?"

"OF COURSE, MY GOD."

"Then cut the rope that is holding you up."

There was another moment of silence and stillness. The man just held tighter to the rope. The rescue team says that the next day they found a frozen mountain climber hanging strongly to a rope... TWO FEET OFF THE GROUND.