An Altar Named “Ed”

Introduction

When he can feel his rules I will come off to my hand to hold when free from envy for and right all his face when last in one delight for screen through every when unfortunately every love is the hold on change that I saw and need an extra night. Tonight’s lesson begins with a brief lesson in the Hebrew language and one particular word. And it’s very appropriate that Ed was leading singing tonight, because that’s the Hebrew word that is the subject of tonight’s lesson. There are the Hebrew letters from which the word Ed is derived. It is found some sixty-seven times in the Old Testament. So we’re talking about a word that appears somewhat frequently, and it simply means witness. A witness is someone or something which provides testimony or attests to an agreement between two parties.

Of course, the ultimate witness is God Himself. The ultimate witness of your integrity and mine is God Himself. But this concept of witness and witnesses is very important in the Old Testament. For example, inanimate objects were often used as witnesses in the case of Abimelech and Abraham in Genesis 21. We have the case of Eulambs being used as a witness between those two parties, Jacob and Laban, from whom he received his two wives, set up stones as a witness between themselves, which later became known, that place became known as Mitzpah. Even a Saul is a witness in Deuteronomy chapter 31 between God and Israel. And so these inanimate objects served as a testimony and made a declaration about something that was of some significance between two parties.

And that leads us to the text that Ed mentioned that I want to look at together with you tonight in Joshua chapter 22, which contains the story of an altar. This is a huge stone that is used in prehistoric monuments or construction work of ancient peoples. And an altar might appear to be something like this in construction, a very huge thing.

Now, for you to understand what’s going on in Joshua 22, a brief history lesson might be involved. As the nation of Israel was coming into the land of Canaan to make its conquests of the land, you might remember that a request was made in Numbers 32 by the tribes of Reuben and Gad. And notice my line is only halfway across half the tribe of Manasseh. Okay, that’s cute there. Half the tribe of Manasseh, as you can see, Manasseh was a very large tribe. And so these two and a half tribes were going to reside on the east side of the Jordan River. And that would isolate them to some degree because of the Jordan River. It wasn’t like a little wadi that you could cross or a little stream.

And there’s a lot of topography that goes with the Jordan River Valley, hills on either side, and so crossing it is not just a matter of going across the water, but it was a rather huge boundary between east and west because of the hilly terrain. And so, what did these tribes do? Okay, you can have the land, but you’ve got to go in and fight with us. The warriors of all the tribe of Manasseh, and Gad and Reuben, had to go in and fight against Jericho and all of those other cities. And then when the conquest was for the most part accomplished, because remember they didn’t drive out all the inhabitants of the land. But when they decided they were done, then the warriors were going home.

Now, as they were going home, there must have no doubt been flooding in their minds these conquests together. And this camaraderie and this tie with their other warriors and the fact that there was concern about this boundary. And so they construct this altar as a result of this concern. I want you to begin reading in Joshua 22. Now remember, Joshua tells them, and this is just a couple of chapters before Joshua’s addressed to the people, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. That happens in Joshua 24, just a couple chapters earlier, as these warriors are about to go back to their families, he says in Joshua 22 and verse 4, and now the Lord your God has given rest to your brothers as he spoke to them.

Therefore, turn now and go to your tents to the land of your possession, which Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave you beyond the Jordan. Only be very careful. Okay, that’s an important admonition. Be very careful to observe the commandment, and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you to love the Lord your God and to walk in all his ways and keep his commandments and hold fast to him and serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. And then in verse 10, verses 9 and 10, the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh returned home and departed from the sons of Israel at Shiloh. Now that’s the place where the tabernacle is at this time, the place where worship would need to occur annually, that these tribes would have to go to Shiloh.

Okay, so Shiloh, they departed from Shiloh to the land of their possession. And when they came to the region of the Jordan, which is in the land of Canaan, the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh built an altar there by the Jordan. A large altar in appearance. Da.

Verse 24. Why did they do this? But truly we have done this out of concern for a reason, saying, In time to come, your sons may say to our sons, What have you to do with the Lord the God of Israel? See, the reason why they did this is their concern that they would now be pushed aside and rejected as not a part of the name. It was a sign of their relationship with their brothers, not some rival altar to the altar which would be at Shiloh. Well, a potentially explosive situation unfolds. Go back to verse 12, verse 11. The sons of Israel heard it and said, Behold, the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half cive of Manasseh have built an altar at the frontier of the land of Canaan in the region of the Jordan on the side belonging to the sons of Israel.

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

This was a reason for civil war. So, what’s going on with the altar made Ed. What was intended by the two and a half tribes on the east side of the Jordan River, what was intended as a symbol of unity was misconstrued as a symbol of apostasy. Now, let’s read further, down in verse 24. We’ll come back to the middle section in a minute. They explained why they had done this. For the Lord in verse 25 has made the Jordan a border between us and you, so that your sons may make our sons stop fearing the Lord. Therefore we said, Let us build an altar, not for burnt offering or for sacrifice. That’s what had to be declared. This is not a rival altar to the place where true worship must be done by the whole nation.

It’s not for sacrifice, they say, or burnt offering. Rather, it shall be Ed. It shall be a witness between us and you. And between our generation. It’s a symbol of our unity. That your sons may not say to our sons in time to come, you have no portion in the Lord. Therefore we said, it shall also come about if they say this to us or to our generation in time to come, then we shall say, now see the copy of the altar. Okay, now it sort of looks like the altar in Shiloh. We built a copy. See the copy of the altar of the Lord which our fathers made? Not for burnt offering or for sacrifice, rather, it is Ed. It is a witness between us and you.

Far be it from us that we should rebel against the Lord and turn away from following the Lord this day by building an altar for burnt offering, for grain offering or for sacrifice, besides the altar of the Lord our God, which is before his tabernacle. Okay. So why would you build something that’s an exact replica or nearly a replica of the true altar that is now at Shiloh? Well, what are you going to use as a symbol that describes your relationship with the rest of the nation? The main worship altar. And so they build an altar in similar look and fashion to the altar of God at Shiloh. Not so that they could have their own worship. This is not like Jeroboam, centuries later, who said, It’s too much for you to go up to Jerusalem.

Let’s build two golden calves, one of Dan and one of Bethel. You just go there to worship. They’re not constructing a new place of worship. This is really a symbol of the true place of worship. A symbol of unity between them and the rest of the tribes because of this possible isolation that could exist. So, I want to draw some observations about this incident that happens that nearly sparked a civil war in the nation. And I think there’s some modern application to be made from this story about how we’re to get along with each other and how we’re to maintain unity among the Lord’s people. I think this story of the altar named Ed does that for us. And here’s one of the things that I think it does.

1. Hearsay Isn't Enough Evidence to Determine Guilt

It tells us that hearsay isn’t enough evidence to determine guilt. Do you hear what the two and a half tribes did now? Look, they have just risked their lives. They have just gone into battle for several months, if not longer than that. And they have fought in the land of Canaan side by side and secured the land, and now they’re going home, and so quickly they’re apostasizing from the Lord. But what else could this altar be about? And so it’s reported, hey, they built an altar over there. Well, that wasn’t enough evidence to determine guilt. And when they finally get a chance to explain, well, that makes sense, doesn’t it? What they were planning to do. Look at Joshua 22 and verse 16. Notice how they initially respond to the news that this altar had been built.

What is this unfaithful act which you have committed against the God of Israel? Turning away from following the Lord this day, by building yourselves an altar to rebel against the Lord this day.

Now, one of the observations I would make in this story, if only they had been this principled all the way along in their history. That they would get this upset and unraveled over this potentially corrupt worship forming among our people to the extent that they were so enraged about it that they would go to war. We must not corrupt the worship of the true God Jehovah, who brought us into the land that is floored with milk and hey. We’ll even go to war against our brothers to defend what is right and to do what is right. If only they had been this principle later in their history. This part of it at least testifies to their passion for doing right, their passion for doing what the Lord wants them to do rather than compromise.

Francis Schaefer regarded about this. They thought the holiness of God was being threatened. So these men who were sick of war said, the holiness of God demands no compromise. We need to say that.

Now, if he was writing that ten years later, he’d say 21st century, but the church of the 21st century would learn this lesson. The holiness of the God who exists demands that there be no compromise in the area of truth. Now, they had a right to express concern. They bring up a couple of incidents in Israel’s history. The matter of Paor that involved Balaam. The matter of Achan, remember at the city of Jericho when he took of the devoted thing, the spoil when they were supposed to take that. They brought up those as history lessons saying, look what happens when you don’t listen to the Lord. So this could be a potentially explosive and bad thing that they built this altar, like in the past. We’ve seen what happens when we as a nation apostatize.

2. The Proper Attitude When Questioned

Again, if they had only been concerned about these kinds of things later in their history, perhaps in the period of the judges, things might have gone a lot better during those eras. Hearsay isn’t enough evidence to determine guilt. The second thing, I want you to notice the proper attitude when question. You know, when folks are guilty, they tend to get defensive. They tend to immediately go to antagonistic status rather than trying to explain and be clear about what they’ve done and why they did it. And that’s what we read in verses 24 through 29. That they were approachable. They didn’t, oh, if you’re going to war against us, we haven’t done anything wrong here, so let’s go to war. But that wasn’t their response. They tried to make peace and to explain why it is that they did what they did.

3. Looks Can Be Deceiving

And I think there’s another thing that we learn here, and that is that looks can be deceiving. Just the way something looks on the surface might not be the way it really is. I’ve used this illustration several times. One of the elders in Beaumont, great guy. David Banning has worked with him for a number of years as I did. Wesley Pollard works for the phone company, has for years over there, and sometimes he would call me. I was in the office when I was working for the Dallin Road Church, and I’d be in the office and Wesley called me and said, Tony, I just want you to know I’ve walked out of a beer establishment, a drinking establishment. And I want you to know I was only in there collecting the money at the payphones.

That’s the only thing. If anybody calls or says anything about me being in that establishment, I was only there to do my job, and I just wanted you to know that at such and such a time, that’s why I was coming out of that place. Well, if you saw Wesley come out of that, Wesley, what are you doing in a place like that? If you’re not drinking, you’re hanging out with those that are. I mean, you could you could assume that. But looks can be deceiving. I understand the upset about this altar. It looks like the altar of God in Shiloh. They’re going to do their own worship. After all, they’re on the other side of the Jordan River. They have the same attitude that we would see later.

It’s too much to go up to Jerusalem to worship. And so they’re going to build their own altar. But that’s what it looked like. But that’s not why they did it. And so there needed to be further inquiry about why. So I would just caution you in this business of how we’re supposed to get along with each other. Don’t automatically assume the worst about people. As to why they did something or what they are doing when we don’t have the facts. I can’t tell you how many times through the years I’ve heard things that were being said about me, about the church that I was associated with, but just absolutely wasn’t true. That there was compromise involved, and I had believed certain things, and it’s like, would somebody come ask me?

Just come ask me. I’m willing to tell anybody what I believe about this. I had a meeting canceled several years ago. And it was because another brother had said, I’m not sure about him. He’s suspect. I don’t know that I would have him for a gospel meeting. And so I got the call from one of the members that we scheduled somebody else. I said, Well, that’s fine. I mean, you don’t have to have me come for a meeting if you don’t want to. There’ll be some other people that want me to come to hold a meeting for them. That’s just fine. But why are you doing this? And if it’s a particular issue, marriage, divorce, remarriage, whatever it is that you think I’m soft on or that I won’t preach about, I’ll do a whole meeting on that issue, whatever it is.

So you’ll know exactly what I believe. And if you don’t think what I’m teaching the truth, you can get somebody, your local preacher, one of the elders, to stand up and say, this is what the truth on this is. This brother isn’t teaching or preaching the truth. I said, I’ll be glad to do that. You name the subject. And of course, they weren’t willing to do that. Now, to their credit, they eventually called me back and learned, apparently, that I wasn’t soft or in error on these things. They ultimately had me come back for a meeting, which I thought was nice. But for some reason, some brother had cast a shadow or Paul over me without the facts. I’ve heard things. Tony doesn’t use much scripture in his sermon.

What are you laughing about? You’ve heard some of my preaching, haven’t you? Three years’ work. Oh, I think he uses quite a few scriptures in his sermons. I can’t tell you how many times he doesn’t use much scripture in his preaching. And I thought, now how hard have they worked to discover the truth or error about that? Has anybody called me and asked me for one of my outlines? In fact, I put out two outlines every Sunday once upon a time. And so they could just pick up one of those outlines and see how much scripture was involved in the lessons that I was preaching. And yet we hear things, and this really goes back to the first one. We’d hear things, but hearsay isn’t enough evidence to determine guilt.

4. The Lord Knows

It looked like what the two and a half tribes was doing might be a violation of the law of God, and such would be extremely severe. But that’s not what they were doing. That’s not why they had built it. And I like what they said. In Joshua chapter 22 and verse 22.

When in response to these charges, they say, the mighty one, God, the Lord, the mighty one, God the Lord, he knows. And may Israel itself know, if it was in rebellion, or if in an unfaithful act against the Lord, do not thou save us this day. But the fact is, the Lord knows about our behavior, good or bad, we should all remember the Lord knows. The facts of the matter. And whether everybody else knows or doesn’t know, or has believed what is wrong? Really, the real issue is the Lord always knows. And that’s what they say. The Lord knows why we’ve done this. They know it was not about rival worship, that it was about an altar, a witness to our relationship with you. And fifthly, I would make this observation.

5. The Devil Driving a Wedge Between Brothers

What else we learn from Joshua chapter 22 is there’s another character involved in this story who’s not actually mentioned by name. Who do you think is involved in driving this wedge or attempting to drive this wedge between brothers? Don’t you know the devil perks up his ears at this opportunity? Maybe I can get them fighting against each other. How many times in local churches do you think the devil has been involved in instigating divisiveness in a local church? He loves it when we get so focused or devouring our own brethren. Perhaps it’s not even in our congregation, but a congregation across town or another in our community that we get all up at arms about, and we’re gonna we’re gonna have some kind of big rugges about something.

I’ve heard this happening in towns. And the issue is when this focus becomes inward. How are we going to reach out and save those who are outside the body of Christ? If the devil can keep us busy fighting with each other, then he’s going to keep us from doing the work of trying to save souls while there’s time and opportunity. Oh, there are times where we have to take a stand when there is error and compromise, to be sure. But I’ll tell you who likes the vision. And that’s the devil. He’s involved in this story in Joshua chapter 22, though he’s not mentioned specifically in this text. Well, that’s what was going on with the altar named in it. But I want to take this one final step tonight.

6. What Is Your Life a Witness To?

As this altar that they built was a testimony to their relationship with their brothers across the Jordan, what is your life and my life a testimony to? What kind of witness does our behavior suggest about our loyalties? What about in the workplace? How do people regard our witness? Do they recognize us as a person of holiness by the things we will not say? By our modesty, by our kindness, by our peacefulness. When people look at you, and I think this is something we need to think about as we go about our lives day after day, when people that we associate with on a daily basis in the work environment, what are our lives a witness to? What do they look at us and think? Do they see I’m one loyal to Jesus Christ?

I’m a committed saint. Boy, this person goes to services regularly. They may or may not know at this point that you’re a member of the Decor of Prairie Church of Christ, but they know that you are very committed to the Lord’s people. In your neighborhood.

What is your life a witness of? In your home. What is your behavior and character a witness of. And yeah, we can be misjudged by other people. And sometimes that has nothing to do with what we’ve done. There was nothing that the two and a half tribes did that was a violation of the will of God. To build a stone of, put stones together as a witness of their relationship with the other nine and a half tribes, there was nothing wrong with what they did, but it was misconstrued to be such. I can’t control what everybody else thinks about me necessarily. There’s an interesting passage in Romans chapter 12 that I’ve used a lot and looked at a lot in Romans chapter 12 and some the outgrowth of what it means to have a mind set on the Spirit, as we talked about this morning in verse 18, it says, if possible, Romans 12 and verse 18, if possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.

Peace will not always be possible in every circumstance. In Psalm 121, the psalmist says, When I speak, I am for peace, but they are for war. Some people, no matter what you try to do to have the kind of relationship that God wants, they don’t want it. They want conflict. This passage says, so far as it depends upon you. Peacefulness requires that two parties strive to get along. So he says, you do your part. You do your part. And that would pertain to the marriage relationship as well. You do what you’ve been instructed to do, how you’ve been instructed to be, you make sure that you’re doing so far as it depends upon you. Now that doesn’t necessarily determine that everything’s going to come out as God designs and plans for it to be.

Because again, it’s going to require two parts. So far as it depends on you be at peace with all men. That’s all I tell you, that’s why they did what they did. Let’s explain why we did what we did, and that ought to solve the matter. And it did. No civil war. Then Joshua gets to give his address in chapter 24. And the whole nation, including the two and after I get to say, No, we will serve the Lord. And they did so all the days of Joshua and the elders that outlived Joshua. So what is your life a witness to? How are you known? What do people say about you? And is it what the Lord knows about you? And so I want to conclude tonight in 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 19.

Conclusion

As the Lord looks down from heaven at us, we who claim to be his people. Nevertheless, 2 Timothy 2 and verse 19, the firm foundation of God stands having this seal. The Lord knows those who are his. And let everyone who names the name of the Lord abstain from wickedness. I refer to this verse a lot. The Lord knows. The Lord the mighty one, he knows. And really, how we’re regarded even by each other is not the most important thing. We should want to be regarded as faithful servants of the Lord. But the ultimate witness, as I said in the introduction, this lesson is the Lord Himself. What is it that the Lord knows about you? The Lord knows whether you’re his or not. And he says, Well, let me tell you about who is his.

Let everyone who names the name of the Lord. I am on the Lord’s side. All that the Lord stands for, that’s what I’m for in my life, is an indication of that. Let everyone who names the name of the Lord, what is consistent with that? Abstains from wickedness. Now that’s very general, isn’t it? In every nation, he who fears God and does what is right is welcome to him. Acts chapter 10 and verse 35. I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lust, which wage war against the soul. Saying the same thing that Paul did in 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 19. So what does it mean to be aligned with the Lord, to be known by Him? 1 Corinthians 8 and verse 3.

Remember, I don’t use many scriptures in my sermons. First Corinthians 8 and verse 3. If anyone loves God, he is known by him. Abstain from wickedness. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength as Jesus admonished the greatest commandment, both in the old covenant and the new. Is that who I am? Is that how the Lord regards me? Is that the witness? Is that the witness of my life? The Lord knows that. Have you made the determination to put wickedness out of your life and to serve the Lord with all your heart? Don’t you want that to be the witness of your life? And perhaps you’ve selected that course in the past. You put on Christ in baptism, having your sins forgiven, rising to walk in newness of life, but you sort of become discouraged along the way, forgotten the importance of striving for these things.

Perhaps you need to make correction. Maybe even do so in a public way. That’s why we offer this period of our worship as a time of invitation. If anyone needs to respond, come now as we stand and sing together.

My say your near my near season.